A select committee of cross-party peers will consider next-stage House of Lords reform following the planned abolition of the 86 remaining hereditary peers. Plans include removing peers who do not contribute sufficiently and introducing a mandatory retirement age of 80. The committee will explore how to define and measure participation, whether through legislation or other means, and will seek to avoid unintended consequences and abrupt cliff-edge effects. Participation metrics should recognise both chamber contributions and committee work rather than relying solely on counts of speaking contributions, acknowledging that some valuable activity is hard to quantify.
Most peers agree the current membership is too high and that there are those who rarely attend. The committee will, in turn, be able to look at what might be done with or without legislation. I hope the select committee will also anticipate any unintended consequences. But she suggested that a pure measure of speaking contributions would not be a fair way of considering participation overall.
Those who regularly contribute to the work of the Lords have a clear feel for what this might be. It would recognise contributions in the main chamber as well as the solid, often unnoticed, work done in our impressive system of committees but it is hard to quantify, she said. Smith said the implementation of a retirement age would avoid any possible cliff-edge moment.
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