The House of Lords is bursting at the seams
The list of around 40 “working peers” to be published today will contain even more unfamiliar names than usual as David Cameron seeks to bolster his support in the Upper House, where the opposition parties have a significant majority. They include a number of backroom political advisers whose qualification for sitting in the Lords is questionable to say the least.
The pool of experienced new peers has been restricted still further by the vetting procedures. As this newspaper reveals today, the appointments scrutiny committee has disqualified a record number of nominations considered unfit to serve in the Lords, even though some of them were MPs. Seven names have apparently been rejected. In the past 15 years, only 10 peerages have been blocked.
Recent expenses scandals have rightly raised the bar of propriety that the committee needs to see met. But its vetting remit is arguably too narrow and should be extended to include the calibre of peers not just their alleged venality. Currently, it considers whether candidates have been guilty of any financial or personal indiscretion but cannot pass judgment on the experience and suitability of individuals. This risks producing the somewhat bizarre circumstance whereby those we want to see in the Upper House because they are the greatest experts in their fields could be barred, while special advisers and political placemen are catapulted into the Lords.
Today’s announcement highlights another, though related, problem with the Lords: the House is too big and unwieldy. True, there were more members of the Upper House when the hereditary peers still sat but many of them never turned up. Today there are close to 800 and most are active. Last week, Viscount Astor – who happens to be the Prime Minister’s father-in-law – said the place was bursting at the seams and crying out for reform. The problem is that the Lords may be the principal opposition to the Conservative Government; and just as Tony Blair stuffed it with cronies to counter the Tory dominance in the late Nineties, so Mr Cameron needs to redress the imbalance or risk having his programme shredded.
In fact, the 30 or so Tory nominations will hardly dent the opposition majority. Although the Liberal Democrats were destroyed at the polls in May, reducing the number of their MPs to just eight, the party has more than 100 peers. Labour has more than 200. Their combined strength in the Lords is significantly greater than the 224 Tories, which makes it hard to understand why the opposition parties are being given any working peerages at all. The Government has already been defeated on half a dozen occasions since May, which is a harbinger of the battles to come.
But the opposition in the Lords should be careful. While they can exercise their right to revise and improve legislation, seeking to block measures on which the Government was elected – such as human rights reforms – would be another matter and a potential breach of long-standing conventions. It could even reopen the debate about the future of the Lords, which stalled in the last Parliament.
Their lordships need to consider the criticism of their current arrangements and act to cut their numbers. While age ceilings and term limits are probably not advisable, there is provision now for peers to retire, as Lord Hattersley did this week. Many more should follow his example. Lord Astor’s idea of two out, one in is worth pursuing.