Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 3:07 pm on 1 May 2024.
I pay tribute to the work that the noble Lord, Lord Burns, and his committee did, but a number of Administrations have not signed up to those recommendations and have not wanted to move in the direction of a cap. I think I understand why. You want to focus on the number of Peers who attend, not simply the overall figure. As I have tried to explain, we have a mixture of full-time Peers and some who contribute only occasionally but bring unique insights to what they do. It is a little unclear, when people are made Peers, whether they will not come very often—which is certainly what I intended when I became a Peer—or end up contributing in a very substantial way, particularly at different parts of their career.