asked the Leader of the House:How many Life Peerages have been created and how many Life Peers have died in each of the last five years; if the former figure is larger than the latter, when on present trends the numbers of "the working House" will stabilise; and what the size of the "working House" will then be compared with its size today.

The statistical information requested is as follows:

	Life Peerages Created	Deaths of Life Peers
1978	26	10
1979	31	6
1980	14	15
1981	22	7
1982	10	11
	Total 103	49

The above table includes Life Peerages created under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 (as amended) as well as those created under the Life Peerages Act 1958. It shows that the total number of Peerage creations in the years concerned exceeded the total number of deaths of Life Peers in the same period. It also shows that there is no discernible trend, and it is therefore impossible to make any prediction of the future size of the "working House", however that term may be defined.