No automatic peerage for ex-pms, May says

Top judges, police officers and cabinet ministers will no longer be “automatically” given seats in the House of Lords after they leave high office, Theresa May has said.

The Prime Minister committed reducing the size of the chamber, but said a call for a maximum term of 15 years to cap numbers requires “further careful thought and wider engagement”.

Mrs May pledged to end the convention of an “automatic entitlement” to peerages for senior public servants as part of efforts to reduce the size of the bloated upper chamber from 792 members.

She also pledged to exercise continued restraint in making appointments and said all parties should encourage more peers to retire to reduce the size of the Lords. However, Downing Street said further political appointments to the Lords would be made.

Mrs May was responding to calls by the cross-party Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House for a “two out, one in” system to cut the number of peers by a quarter to 600.

The commitment means the likes of her predecessor David Cameron and his chancellor George Osborne would not benefit from the convention that former Prime Ministers and senior cabinet ministers are given peerages, although they would not be barred.

Mrs May has appointed eight peers since taking power in 0 Theresa May vowed to exercise restraint July 2016, including three political appointments as ministers.

“I intend to continue with the restraint which I have exercised to date and, when making appointments, to allocate them fairly, bearing in mind the results of the last general election and the leadership shown by each party in terms of retirements,” she said in a letter to the Lord Speaker.

“I will also operate on the basis that there is no automatic entitlement to a peerage for any holder of high office in public life.”

Since Mrs May took office, Jeremy Corbyn has appointed just one peer, former Liberty director Baroness Chakrabarti.

Across all parties, 24 peers have been appointed to the Lords and two hereditary peers elected since Mrs May took office, while 28 have retired and 16 have died. It has left the overall size of the Lords down by 20 members under her premiership.