MORE than ONE HUNDRED peers in Britain’s Upper House, ‘The House of Lords’ have claimed a total of £1.3m DESPITE the fact they have never debated anything in the past NINE MONTHS.
According to a report by the Electoral Reform Society (ERS), who analysed Parliamentary records – out of 800 UNELECTED peers in the House of Lords – 155 of them (15%) did not contribute to a debate from June 2016 – April 2017, yet STILL claimed your hard earned cash.
Members of the House of Lords – known as Peers, can claim up to £300 per day just for turning up.
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The most active 300 peers claimed just HALF of the total expenses, “showing the size of the Lords can be cut without significantly limiting its work”, according to the ERS.
Darren Hughes, the ERS chief executive, said the data appeared to show a growing “something for nothing” culture.
A House of Lords spokesman said: “The Electoral Reform Society’s calculations are undermined by their narrow focus on spoken contributions.
“Speaking in the chamber is only one of the ways members hold the government to account and this research ignores members’ contributions including amending legislation, asking the government written questions and serving on select committees – more than 320 members served on committees in the last session of parliament – as well as parliamentary work away from the chamber.
“The Lords is an active and effective revising chamber.”
BERCOW WANT’S TO DRAIN THE SWAMP TOO!
THE HOUSE of Lords should be CUT in size, Commons speaker John Bercow has said.
Speaking at the Institute of Government, Bercow – who, as Speaker, remains officially neutral on party political matters – said he would like to see an elected second chamber but added: “I don’t think reform on any major scale is going to happen soon.”
He added: “One can argue the toss about the size of the House of Commons, but as far as the size of the House of Lords in concerned, it is, frankly, patently absurd that the House of Lords is significantly larger than the House of Commons.”
Bercow said there remained “a very good argument” for having a second chamber but ”should it consist of 800-plus members? Absolutely not. It could most definitely be halved in size, and I think most fair-minded people would say that it should be.”
The Speaker also said he would prefer the weekly PMQs to last an hour, rather than the current scheduled 30 minutes.
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