House of Lords (Members’ Taxation Status) Bill [HL]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord. Of course, before I do these things I consult the Leader’s office and everyone else. I may have the ability to string some words together but in writing I am not quite so good; it is difficult. My point was that £43 billion is being spent on I know not what. I turn to the amendment. We want to say who should be a Member of this House. Frankly, I do not believe that more than 400 Members should be appointed, directly or indirectly, by a prevailing Prime Minister; nor do I believe that those who merely inherited a title have the right to be here. Those of us who were appointed by an Act of Parliament in 1999 believe that we have a duty to be here. If you look, you will find that among those with the highest attendance are those who were elected following the 1999 Act. We feel that we are in part guardians of history. I turn to the specific details of the amendment, which was designed to help the noble Lord, Lord Oakeshott. I tried to remove from the Title the word "taxation", leaving just the word "status". What first determines taxation throughout the world is status: who you are, your nationality, where you live and so on. The Public Bill Office said that I could not do that, so I thought that, first and foremost, I would say that anyone who was a Member of the House of Lords should be British or have the opportunity to be British. Therefore, the question is: what is British? Proposed new subsection (1) in my amendment states: ""Any Member introduced into the House of Lords after the passing of this Act shall be a British citizen for taxation purposes"," although I wanted to leave out "for taxation purposes". The most interesting thing about it is that anyone who attends the House of Lords for more than the equivalent of 90 days—it is quite complicated—is automatically—