House of Lords: Labour Peers’ Working Group Report

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire]

My Lords, I am not an expert on the dark arts of Downing Street—perhaps the noble Lord is. I simply stress that the question of age balance is important, and the idea of a House that stops recruiting new Members and simply grows older and older relatively gracefully is not one that we would accept or recognise.

[The Earl of Sandwich (CB)]

I am grateful to the Minister. He rather dismissed the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, but does it not cope with the problem of topping up after the election? He has not addressed that.