European Parliament (House of Lords Disqualification) Regulations 2008

My Lords, I shall seek to explain. If they were elected before 2004, they came in on the same basis as a life Peer coming in during the same period. One accepts a life peerage and the fact of election is irrelevant in this context. All the Members who came into this House before 2004 accepted that once they were here, they would be here for life. They were not aware that if subsequently they were contemplating standing for election to the European Parliament they would be barred from doing that. One can argue that once the ban on the dual mandate is introduced, anybody entering the House will be aware that the ban took effect on them, and there is justification for excluding them, which was at the heart of the noble Lord’s argument.