Letter: Same old Lords

Letter:

Same old Lords

Sir: I read Sarah Schaefer's report "Peers support interim plan for the Lords" (12 May) as my flight flew over Kilimanjaro, on my return from helping to train future women leaders in Tanzania.

It's pretty much business as usual in the Upper House - jobs for the boys. The agreement to permit 92 hereditaries to continue in the new House of Lords means almost certainly at least 90 of them will be males, following centuries of the mind-bogglingly fatuous male primogeniture system.

Put together with the fact that for decades life peerages have been appointed at the rate of seven males to each female, you have yet again a chamber that in no sense contains the width of skills and intelligence the 51 per cent of this nation that happens to be female could bring to it.

TIM SYMONDS

Executive Director

Project Parity

London W1