The House of Lords needs to reduce the number of “passengers” who contribute little to the upper house, an issue caused in part by the mass creation of life peers under Tony Blair and David Cameron, the Lord Speaker, Norman Fowler has said. Asked if such an influx diluted the quality of the Lords, Fowler said: “It’s partly unfair, because there were some good people who came in. Lords records show she has spoken in the chamber three times in three years, and she is not a member of any committee. Elevated in 2007 by Gordon Brown so he could be a junior business minister, Jones was initially busy in the Lords. Since then, he has spoken in the Lords five times, the last being in January 2016.

Source: The Guardian January 01, 2019 13:39 UTC