Lords bridge team 'stuck in lift'

Lift-goers are assumed to weigh 75kg on average

The government has been urged to find a new way of specifying the capacity of lifts - after members of the House of Lords bridge team got stuck.

Half of the team were caught in one of the Palace of Westminster lifts for 25 minutes last year, peers heard.

Tory spokesman Lord Skelmersdale asked if the assumption that 75kg was the average person's weight was too low.

But the government said floor area used up was a further "constraint" on the number of "stouter" people allowed in.

'Easily digested'

Labour's Lord Harrison said: "Given that half of the House of Lords bridge team... was caught in the Lord Speaker's lift for some 25 minutes before Christmas... and given that the average weight of men and women has risen by some 10% over the last 20 years is... the advice given in lifts... accurate and easily digested by those who use them?"

For the government, Lord McKenzie of Luton said there was a "robust regime" in place and that "the concept is that the lift can just accommodate the number of people of standard size that it is designed for".

I pressed the button and a voice said in a rather intimidating way: 'This lift is overloaded' Lord Boston of Faversham

"It should only be possible for it to be used by fewer people of larger stature."

He added that he was "sorry to hear of the discomfiture of my noble friend and the bridge team".

Lord Skelmersdale questioned the average weight figure, as the national diet and nutrition survey of adults aged 19 to 64, published in 2004, had given 87kg for a man and 69kg for a woman.

He had surveyed five lifts in the Palace of Westminster and in all of them, if the recommended maximum number of people had all been men of average weight, they would have exceeded the limit.

Lord McKenzie replied that, according to the Department of Health, the average weight for adults was 76.7kg - just above 75kg.

Ukrainian weightlifters

He added: "But the constraint on this isn't so much the assumed average of 75kg but the floor area that is provided within a lift so that if people are heavier and stouter, it should accommodate fewer people."

But Lord Harrison retorted: "If a party of Ukrainian weightlifters were visiting the House of Lords for the purposes of discussing sports policy they might not conform to the average 75kg."

Lord McKenzie replied: "It is very unlikely, unless they were extremely friendly, that they would all be able to fit in to the lift together."

Continuing the debate, crossbencher Lord Boston of Faversham said: "A couple of weeks ago, I took the lift just beyond the Bishops' robing room.

"I pressed the button and a voice said in a rather intimidating way: 'This lift is overloaded'.

"I was the only one in it - I hadn't realised I had gained so excessively in weight."