§ 33. Mr. Willie W. Hamiltonasked the Lord Privy Seal whether, in the light of the increasing work load on Members of the House of Lords, Her Majesty's Government will seek to improve their allowances.
§ Mr. BiffenThe various allowances increase automatically as determined by the appropriate resolutions of the House of Lords.
§ Mr. HamiltonDoes the right hon. Gentleman agree that democracy is at great peril under the current dictatorship of the Prime Minister, particularly at local level, and the only way that that can be thwarted is along the Corridor in the House of Lords? Does not the right hon. Gentleman think that democracy has a high price, and that it is will worth while paying that high price to safeguard democracy?
§ Mr. BiffenThe fact that it is alleged that democracy is at risk, the fact that it is asserted that along the Corridor there is some effective watchdog, the fact that this is the last Parliament in which the hon. Gentleman will be serving, and the fact that, according to the Daily Mirror and what the Leader of the Opposition said on TV AM, the House of Lords will not be scrapped in Labour's first five years—all those facts lead me to think that where David Kirkwood trod in the past, the hon. Gentleman will be happy to follow.