Keir Starmer has denied that his decision to bring in a retirement age of 80 for the House of Lords means he believes Joe Biden should stand down as US president.
Ahead of his first bilateral talks with Biden at the White House, the UK prime minister said the “primary driver” for bringing in a retirement age for peers was the size of the second chamber.
“The simple fact is that our House of Lords is massive. It is the second biggest political chamber in the world. I think it’s only the Chinese who have a bigger political chamber than our House of Lords. We have to reduce it.
“That is the primary driver of the retirement at 80. You can see why that needs to be done. We’ve got 800-plus members of the Lords, it’s simply too big. We need to reduce it.
“So it doesn’t reflect on how other elected representatives are chosen in other countries, it’s to do with the size of the House of Lords.”
After Biden’s disastrous performance in his first debate against Donald Trump boosted concerns about his age and fitness for office, the president has faced calls to stand down as the Democratic nominee this November.
The bilateral talks came as Starmer admitted that his ministers will need to use the Nato summit in Washington to help reset the UK’s relationship with European neighbours after years of tensions as a result of Brexit.
The prime minister has been joined on his first overseas trip by Nick Thomas-Symonds, who has been given the newly created job of European relations minister, as well as the defence and foreign secretaries.
Starmer’s administration wants to repair the damage to relations with Europe caused by the Brexit wrangles and strike a better deal with the EU on issues including security and trade.
“It has provided a really important window of opportunity for me and my team … to strengthen our relations with various Nato leaders and others obviously that are there, including EU leaders,” Starmer told reporters on the plane to Washington.
“I want to make sure we take full advantage of this opportunity. These are meetings that would probably take months and months for us to fit in as a team, if we were not taking advantage of this summit.
“The central purpose is obviously all about Nato, but it is a very important opportunity to strengthen those relations.”
The Guardian revealed this week that Labour is seeking a sweeping joint declaration with the EU to usher in a wide-ranging security pact covering defence, energy, the climate crisis, pandemics and even illegal migration.
“This is really important to us. I do think there is scope for a significant improving of our defence and security relationship with the EU,” Starmer said.
“This is complementary with Nato. Nato is still the cornerstone of defence in Europe and our approach on defence has always been Nato first. I do see scope for complementing that. That is why we are wanting to advance the defence and security pact or agreement with the EU.”
The UK is hosting about 50 leaders from across Europe next week at the fourth meeting of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of Winston Churchill.
