Letters | 27 August 2015

Trimming the ermine

Sir: I am a new boy in the House of Lords compared with Viscount Astor — though I did hear Manny Shinwell speak — but he is right that it is bursting at the seams, and something needs to be done about it (‘Peer review’, 22 August). I detect signs of a consensus that the right number of peers is about 450. It is 782 at the moment.

In the 16 divisions since the election,
the largest number of peers voting was 459. The Lords values its crossbenchers and if their number were set at one fifth of the total, that would yield 90 on this figuring. The remaining 360 could then be proportioned out according to strength in the Commons, with each political grouping being given the freedom to decide how it got from here to there.

If the government took the lead, it could, after proper consultations, have a White Paper next year with legislation towards the end of the parliament, to be enacted immediately after the next general election, when the Commons is scheduled to come down to 600. Simple? No. But worth thinking about.
John Horam
House of Lords, London SW1

Commons people

Sir: Roger Scruton’s views and the duty of MPs to resist online pressure (‘Flashmob rule’, 15 August) were interesting — but might I suggest their validity is quite firmly based on the concept of broad-minded, well-grounded MPs with plenty of life experience? In the increasingly obvious absence of these qualities in each succeeding intake, how are we to trust the MPs’ judgment?
Tim Duckworth
Kendal, Cumbria

Starkey contrast

Sir: Tony Sewell is absolutely right that black Caribbean boys are being held back in school by a fear of betraying their background (‘Don’t act white, act immigrant’, 22 August).