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This week a parliamentary committee suggested that peers should only serve 15 years in the House of Lords .

Spot on. Sign me up. I joined the House of Lords in 2010 and by 2025 I’d be 87.

Don’t get me wrong. I hope to still be as bright as a button and in good health in eight years.

But the second chamber of the Houses of Parliament shouldn’t be a retirement home for politicians.

Neither should it be private club for pals of party leaders.

This week Andrew Lloyd Webber said he was standing down from the Lords. I can’t say I have any memories of his contributions. Apart from flying back first class from New York to vote for Tory cuts to tax credits for the working poor.

We have more than 800 peers when we only have 650 MPs – and the Tories are even wanting to cut that to 600.

The reason we have so many lords and ladies is because of an arms race from successive governments who pack the house with more of their people so they can pass laws through parliament.

(Image: Daily Mirror)

Thanks to David Cameron and his coalition with Nick Clegg we now have the absurd travesty of the Lib Dems having 11 MPs and over 100 unelected peers.

Many peers don’t even turn up. I go every day because I treat it as a job, not a club. I still run an office and work.

But what really gets me is that it’s just not representative of the UK. Nearly half of all peers are based in London and the South East. Just five per cent are from the North West.

So let’s scrap the House of Lords altogether and start again. Firstly, let’s call it the Senate and the people who serve there senators. I’d happily give up being called a Lord and Baron.

Labour wants a Senate for the Nations and Regions, which would be fully elected. I don’t agree. I believe only one House of Parliament should be elected as the sovereign body and that is the House of Commons .

What’s more important is how it better reflects all our English regions and the nations.

Labour gave power and resources to the nations of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales as well as the London Assembly.

(Image: Rex Features)

But our English regions are controlled from the centre in London when they actually need the same powers and resources that Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland get.

So I think the Senate should be made up from people indirectly elected to local councils or, better still, regional assemblies and national parliaments. It would mean every region and nation would have an equal say and the ability to back or block laws.

Secondly, why must it be in London? MPs and peers are going to have to leave the Houses of Parliament soon for several years because it needs to be refurbished.

So why don’t we use it as an opportunity to put the Senate outside London. How about Birmingham or Leeds?

Finally, I don’t want to lose the great contribution from peers who are not aligned to any parties, known as crossbenchers.

I’ve seen at first hand the real need to have specialists with decades of experience and know-ledge to contribute to the debate and scrutinise parliamentary bills. They help to stop governments making bad laws.

So I’d keep these crossbenchers but make them non-voting members of this new second chamber and limit them to

15 years.

Whatever happens, I’ll be out by 2025. And I’d happily go back to being plain old Mr Prescott.