My hon. Friend makes a very good point. Yes, it is. As we are into a debate about the exercise of the royal prerogative, we should consider that, because he makes an interesting point.
The bad baron Farage will be joining 800 or so of the weirdest parliamentarians to be found anywhere in the world, in the second largest Chamber in the world. He will be joining not just the cronies, the donors and the party placemen, but the Church of England bishops, the aristocrats and, even worse, the Liberal Democrats—the Chamber of unelected horrors.
In the next Parliament, if the House of Lords continues to increase in the way that it has, we face the real prospect of something approaching 1,000 unelected Lords to scrutinise the work of 600 Members of Parliament. We will almost have two unelected parliamentarians for every elected one, yet we have the gall to lecture the developing world about the quality of their democracy.
The main case made by the Government to do this was to reduce the cost and the size of politics, but they are clearly not doing that. The cost of politics is increasing exponentially, not year on year, but month by month. We have heard about the armies of civil servants that will have to be created to staff the new Departments dealing with this Government’s chaotic Brexit plans; the number of Spads has increased by about 20% in the past few years; and the Government have put 250 donors, cronies and placemen into the House of Lords. What are the savings? The Minister claimed £66 million, but I believe that is over five years. The figure—I think the hon. Member for North West Durham said it—is closer to £12 million. When it comes to making savings that will not even pay for the paint on a Trident missile.