Sharing peers’ pay

Year after year, we see the cost of the House of Lords continue to spiral out of control, so is it not time for a bit of real-world logic to be applied?

If a business has an employee working a 40-hour week, and there is an agreement that the job can be done by two on a job-share basis, with each working 20 hours, then the pay is split between them. We all know how it works .

For argument’s sake, let’s agree that the workload in the House of Lords remains constant. It is my understanding that the House of Lords was designed for 400, and we now have, to utilise rounded-off numbers, 800. So surely the money paid out each day to each who is at “work” should be £150, not £300.

If the number of peers goes up to 1,000, then the daily rate should be two-fifths of the £300, or £120 a day.

And if the number dwindles downwards towards 400, a yearly recalculation can be worked out until we reach a maximum number of 400 doing the full workload to earn the full daily rate, just like in the real world.

COLIN COOKSON

Stenton

Glenrothes, Fife