Labour peers denounce Starmer’s plan for House of Lords as ‘ageist’

Lord Winston, the professor and broadcaster known for his work on fertility, said he wouldn’t support the age cap as it “denies biology”. “It’s rather like saying a member of the House of Lords has to be a certain height,” said the IVF expert, 83, who presented the BBC documentaries The Human Body and Child of Our Time. “I don’t think biology is as important as ability.” President Joe Biden, 81, would be too old to serve in the House of Lords in the next parliament under Labour’s proposals, despite running for re-election in the US. Lord Dubs, 91, the former director of the Refugee Council and a Labour peer, said: “Provided that it’s a first step in a very short path towards reform of the Lords, that is fine, but otherwise it just seems like a token gesture.” Labour’s manifesto also includes plans to strip hereditary peers of their seats, but it stops short of Sir Keir Starmer’s previous vow to abolish the Lords entirely, instead committing to consult the public on a potential replacement for it. “The next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.