Member

I tabled an amendment earlier in Committee that would have had broadly the same effect as that before us set down by my noble friend. I did not move that amendment, not because I do not share the sentiments of my noble friend Lady Mobarik or of many others who have spoken—I do share them—but, as I told the Committee at the outset, I recognise, as do most Peers who have spoken, the mandate of this Government to end the entry of hereditary Peers. The time, as many have said, in which birth gave you a seat in this House has gone, and that is universally recognised. I have also recognised that the Government would wish any transitional arrangement—which again I submit we should have, in equity and justice—to be dampened by retirements and/or other procedural mechanisms to address their concerns about numbers. I made that clear in my opening speech in Committee.