Evgeny Lebedev’s longstanding commitment to being the most relaxed member of the House of Lords has come under threat from another peer, Ian Botham, with both recording identical attendance rates of 1.12% over the past four years.
According to Lords records seen by the Guardian, Lebedev and Botham – who were both appointed by Boris Johnson – each managed to make it to seven of the 625 sessions of the upper house that took place from the start of 2022 to the end of 2025.
One consolation for Lebedev, the newspaper proprietor, son of a billionaire Russian oligarch and friend of Johnson, is that he has beaten his own mark. From November 2019 until the end of 2022, Lebedev attended Lords sessions at the slightly higher rate of 1.25%, getting to four of a possible 318.
Under Lords rules, to keep their seat in the upper house peers must attend at least one sitting in each year-long parliamentary session. Lebedev and Botham, the former cricketer who was made a peer in September 2020, have just about managed this in recent years.
Lebedev attended once in 2022, rising to twice in each of 2023, 2024 and 2025. Botham attended twice in 2022, once in 2023, and twice again in 2024 and 2025. Unlike Lebedev, however, Botham did show some initial enthusiasm, going to 26 sessions in 2021.
Lebedev, a cross-bench peer whose formal title is Baron Lebedev of Hampton and Siberia, does, however, appear to be raising his game a bit. Having not voted at all in his first six years in the Lords, he has done so twice already this year. Similarly, one of his six speeches has taken place this month.
Botham – Baron Botham of Ravensworth, North Yorkshire – has not spoken in the Lords since November 2020 and has not tabled any written questions since November 2024. He has voted 21 times, but not since July 2021.
The way the Lords operates is different from the Commons, with peers often having jobs outside the chamber or other specialisms, and who thus only tend to contribute occasionally.
Similarly, the attendance record does not take into account work on Lords committees, which can take up significant time – though neither Lebedev nor Botham has ever served on one.
Peers can take leave of absence from the Lords, or retire altogether, without losing their titles. Some older members of the Lords also attend very irregularly, although none appear to have done so as consistently as Lebedev and Botham.
The Lords currently has 868 members, of whom 842 are active, making it the largest legislative chamber in the world apart from China’s National People’s Congress.
While a just-passed bill will remove the final 92 hereditary peers from the Lords, wider efforts to curb its size have found little success, with retirements being cancelled out by a high rate of new appointments by various prime ministers.
Keir Starmer has thus far created 96 peers. Johnson created 87, and was criticised for nepotism with a series of appointments, including that of Lebedev. Among other peers created by Johnson was his own brother, Jo.
