For decades, the Lords has operated as a taxpayer-funded day centre for the politically undead.

In 2011, Chris Heaton-Harris stood in the Commons and painted a vivid, Hammer Horror portrait of the House of Lords. Debating European legislation, he claimed to hear "strange noises emanating from the other end of the building, as though tombs were opening and strange beasts appearing."

It was a splendidly gothic bit of parliamentary theatre. One could almost smell the embalming fluid wafting down the Central Lobby. Today, a new committee report suggests Heaton-Harris wasn't just deploying rhetoric; he was conducting an impromptu paranormal investigation. The newly proposed reforms—demanding a bare minimum attendance record and an upper age limit of 80—read less like constitutional tinkering and more like a zombie quarantine.

For decades, the Lords has operated as a taxpayer-funded day centre for the politically undead. Peers could shuffle in, touch the red leather, and claim their allowance without ever contributing a pulse to the legislative process. By forcing out octogenarian absentees, the new rules finally address Heaton-Harris's grim diagnosis. The tombs are being sealed. The strange beasts are being politely asked to hand in their security passes. It took fifteen years, but Parliament has finally hired an exorcist.

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