Demand for peers to be a success in their field
NEW members of the House of Lords should have to prove they have had significant success in their chosen field, senior peers have said.
The call comes amid growing pressure on David Cameron after he announced 45 new peerages, including one for the Scottish businesswoman Michelle Mone, one for a Tory MP who once tried to claim expenses for his moat and another who accused Scots of having their “snout in the trough”.
The Conservative leader faced accusations he was trying to use the Lords to further his “chumocracy” – by stuffing it full of “cronies and Tory donors”.
A sleaze watchdog rejected seven names put forward by different parties for peerages. But members of the Lords have called for its powers to be beefed up.
Baroness Deech, the lawyer and former chairwoman of the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, said a tougher appointments commission should be created with “criteria about success in professions”.
The move could ensure the Lords did not “get any more donors and bag carriers”, she added. She did not mention Ms Mone by name. Ms Mone has faced a backlash from some business leaders.
One described her as “a small-time businesswoman with PR exposure far in excess of any success”.
Making the announcement No 10 said that Ms Mone, who founded lingerie brand Ultimo, was “one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurs (who) sits on the Board of Directors for The Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust”.
It added that she “plays an active role in mentoring programmes, with a particular emphasis on encouraging entrepreneurship in the young”.
In a sign of the growing political difficulties over the latest round of peerages Downing Street sources last night let it be known that Mr Cameron is “open” to reform such as term limits on membership.
The dissolution honours list saw an
extra 26 Tories join the Lords, with the Liberal Democrats getting 11 more places – despite a disastrous General Election – and Labour eight.
They included former Tory MP Douglas Hogg who was at the centre of one of the most high-profile expenses scandals of the last decade when he tried to claim for cleaning his moat on his Commons expenses.
Fellow former Tory minister David Willetts accused Scots of having their ‘snout in the trough’ of public funds in a memo to Margaret Thatcher in 1985.
Other new peers include former Conservative cabinet ministers William Hague and Andrew Lansley, Mr Cameron’s long-standing ‘gatekeeper’ Kate Fall, former Number 10 policy director James O’Shaughnessy, Tory Party vice-chairman K at e Rock and Conservative donor and former vice-treasurer James Lupton.
Businessman Douglas Anderson, of major tool and plant hire company the Gap Group, earlier this week said the decision to make Ms Mone a peer was “ludicrous” and “bad for the country”.
Two weeks ago, The Herald revealed that Ms Mone’s company had used an employee benefit trust (EBT), a tax avoidance scheme which has been heavily disparaged by Chancellor George Osborne.
Referring to the bra tycoon, Mr Anderson said: “This is not good for the country, this is not good for the Union, this is not good for business and this is not good for the House of Lords.
“The only person I can think this is good for is Michelle Mone.’ Ms Mone has promised to work very hard for” ‘our country”.