// BBC UK NEWS — CRONACA
Sarwar stands by call for Lords to be abolished despite accepting peerage
Anas Sarwar is pressed on his decision to join the House of Lords after previously saying it should be abolished.
Former Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar has stood by his previous calls for the House of Lords to be abolished, despite being granted a peerage so he can become a minister in Andy Burnham's government.
In 2022 Sarwar called for the Lords to be scrapped and replaced with a democratically elected chamber, external.
But, despite stepping down last month to become Minister of State for Trade, he told BBC Scotland News: "I have always said that there should be a senate of the nations and regions. I still have that view."
Earlier, he told an Edinburgh Fringe event that leading Scottish Labour was the hardest job in British politics and urged his potential successors to avoid infighting.
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Sarwar spoke to BBC Scotland News afterwards and repeated his previous views on the Lords.
Asked if he misled people by saying, before the Holyrood election, that he wouldn't accept a peerage, Sarwar replied: "My aspiration and ambition was to be first minister of Scotland.
"Clearly I failed in that aspiration and now I want to make sure that this Labour government is a success and we deliver for people in every part of our great country."