Member

We have had the debate about age, and again we cannot agree. As I said earlier, there are many people up there who make a tremendous contribution in their 80s. The Prime Minister has appointed to the Lords a distinguished former Foreign Secretary and a former Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, both of whom are 80, and he presumably did that not thinking they would have to retire immediately. So there is no consensus on age, and there is also no consensus on whether the other House should be elected. We have had this debate for 120 years. Some people, for instance in the Liberal party, say that it would be ridiculous to have an appointed Parliament, and that the only proper way of doing this is to have elected people in the Lords, and then we remind them that that would just lead to gridlock. This is a parliamentary democracy, not a presidential system.