The upper chamber of parliament agreed to sanctions against the three recommended by the Privileges and Conduct Committee. Opposition Labour peer Baroness Uddin was suspended until Easter 2012, while Lord Paul, also Labour, was suspended for four months and Lord Bhatia, an independent, for eight months.

Paul has already returned nearly 42,000 pounds claimed on expenses and Bhatia has given back 27,000 pounds.

Baroness Uddin has not yet paid back more than 125,000 pounds that the committee said she had wrongly claimed, but a Lords’ spokesman said the house would “pursue all options to get that repayment.”

The three came under investigation during an expenses scandal last year that eroded voters’ trust in parliament and led to the government promising wide-ranging political reforms.

The Privileges and Conduct Committee said the three peers abused a 174-pound-a-day overnight allowance paid to politicians whose main home is outside London.

The committee found all three instead “had long-established London residences, in which they spent the bulk of their time, before acquiring a ‘main residence’ outside London, in which they spent a much smaller portion of their time.”

Uddin and Bhatia were found to have acted “not in good faith.” Paul was cleared of that claim but his conduct was found to be “utterly unreasonable.”