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House of Lords: Financial Support for Members

I am sorry, I have not finished yet. I beg your pardon. I was pausing to consider the one other thing I wish to say. My final point relates to the proposals for renting accommodation. There is a general feeling that people will be forced out of owner occupation or that if they have unoccupied properties in London they will be unable to claim for them in the future. However, the proposal for renting is, frankly, crackers. It will become almost impossible to rent accommodation in London without personally subsidising the system because unless you have a 100 per cent attendance you will not be able to claim 100 per cent of the cost of renting your accommodation. For example, if you are renting accommodation for £15,000 a year—which is not a huge amount in London—and you come to two-thirds of the sittings of the House, you will get only £10,000 back. You will therefore have to subsidise that extra £5,000 either out of the remainder of your allowances or out of your personal funds. It is not possible to rent proper accommodation by the day—well, it is possible, but it is not the kind of accommodation I would expect your Lordships to stay in—and if this proposal were to be carried out, the perverse consequence would be to force people into hotels. As a previous speaker—I think it was the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester—said, it is all very well staying in hotels, but if you are to do a proper job here, you need a base while you are in London. That is a fundamental flaw, and regardless of whether it is a part of the architecture, it needs ripping off, recasting and putting back in a sensible way that allows people to recover the genuine and proper costs of living in London.