Johnson’s honours fuel call for lords’ reform
It was one of our favourite things during the dark days of lockdown.
Boris Johnson’s controversial resignation honours list has fuelled pressure for wholesale reform of the House of Lords, critics claim.
The former prime minister’s decision to give peerages to loyal aides, political supporters and party donors has been described by the SNP as a “stain on democracy”, while Labour has urged Rishi Sunak to reject Johnson’s “disreputable demands”.
Scottish Secretary Alister Jack, former Culture Secretary Nadine Dorries, outgoing Cop26 president Alok Sharma and exminister of state Nigel Adams are expected to be given peerages.
Jack is reported to have agreed to put off moving to the Lords until the end of the current parliament so he does not trigger a by-election in his Dumfries & Galloway seat, where he has a slim 1,805 majority. Johnson’s list is also expected to include exDowning Street special adviser Charlotte Owen, 29, who had worked as a parliamentary assistant to Johnson, which will make her the youngest ever life peer. Ross Kempsell, 30, a former Conservative campaign headquarters political director, is also in line for a peerage.
The resignation list has been passed to the House of Lords Appointments Committee, which vets life peerages and is reported to be concerned about their relative youth and Owen’s lack of experience. Johnson’s list, expected to be published within days, comes just weeks after he created 13 new peers, including former Tory MPS including Nicholas Soames and Hugo Swire.
Liz Truss is also expected to draw up a resignation despite her disastrous premiership only lasting 44 days.
SNP MP and constitutional affairs spokesman Tommy Sheppard said: “Both the House of Lords and the corrupt Honour Lists are stains on our democracy and should be abolished.
“Despite rubber-stamping Brexit, imposing austerity on millions and continuing to ignore the will of the Scottish electorate, people like Alister Jack and Nadine Dorries will now be rewarded with a place in the House of Lords, cashing in over £300-a-day for life.
“It smacks of arrogance and entitlement that soon-to-be election-losing has-beens are being elevated to the Lords and will have a say over legislation.
“The idea of scheduling your appointment to Westminster’s second chamber to suit party political convenience is manipulation of democracy, and should be a source of shame.”
Former prime minister Gordon Brown has delivered his blueprint for constitutional reform, which is said to include the abolition of the unelected second chamber and its replacement with a senate of regions and nations, to Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer. He is being urged to include the measures in the party’s election manifesto.
Ian Murray, Labour’s shadow Scottish secretary, said Johnson’s list – which some sources suggest would have been longer if he did not believe that he will return to No 10 – will be a “major test” of Rishi Sunak’s premiership.
He said: “Sunak should make it clear in no uncertain terms that he will refuse to do his disgraced predecessor’s bidding and reject his disreputable demands.
“It would be an appalling state of affairs for Liz Truss to reward her co-conspirators in chaos with honours after crashing the economy and causing such financial pain for millions of people.
“If Rishi Sunak is serious about restoring standards in public life, he will not submit nominations on behalf of Liz Truss and her disastrous six-week premiership.”
Although peers are not paid a salary, they can claim a daily allowance of £323 plus travel.
Johnson’s list is expected to cost the taxpayer around £559,000 a year. It will also take the number of peers to over 800. The House of Lords currently the second-biggest legislative body in the world after China’s People’s Congress.
Dr Jess Garland, director of policy and research at the Electoral Reform Society, said: “We’ve already seen 26 new appointments in recent weeks – sending the bloated House of Lords to over 800 members.
“Lifetime appointments to make our laws are being handed out at the whim of ex-prime ministers even after they’ve left office – acts of political patronage that look more like rewards for loyalty than necessary additions to create an effective and experienced second chamber.
“We need a smaller, elected House of Lords, where lawmakers are chosen by the people they serve not hand-picked by the prime minister of the day. It’s time to end this farce and deliver a democratic second chamber.”
Downing Street declined to comment yesterday.
We would while away the endless hours discussing what our lives would be like when the clouds parted to reveal the sun-dappled uplands of the New Normal. While our lives might have been flung into a pit of uncertainty and turmoil, when we clambered out, we all agreed, things would never be the same again.
Our lives would be transformed utterly and, along with everything else, politics was going to change too as we demanded serious leaders for serious times, refused to tolerate mediocrities and called for public institutions to be razed and rebuilt to reflect our modern nation. So how’s that all going?
When it comes to institutions most in need of urgent attention, the House of Lords remains, as ever, near the top of the list and, as ever, nothing is done apart from adding more peers and piling more ermine and velvet on the creaking benches.
Now we can look forward to Boris Johnson, who created a mere 86 peers while in office, adding another tranche although some informed sources suggest his last list has actually been curtailed because, despite it all, he still believes his resignation is only an interim measure. Meanwhile, his successor, Liz Truss, stays silent on whether she really has the brass neck to honour some of the enablers who foisted her on a disbelieving nation.
To be honest, it no longer matters. The Lords is so obscenely stuffed that a few dozen more is neither here nor there.
It is hard to believe – although easily predictable – that reducing those peers there because of a fluke of birth would only open the doors to many with an equally negligible right to play a part in the governance of this nation, in a shamefully unelected second chamber.
It was so easily predictable, in fact, that the late Duke of Devonshire did so in 1992 when most hereditary peers were politely asked to vacate the premises: “We must have a fully elected second chamber. Before it was quirky, now it will just be those who pay money, has-beens, sycophants and slimeballs who get in.”
Well, quite.
It should now go without saying because it is said every time, that some peers do a good job, diligently scrutinising proposed legislation, asking important questions and holding the government’s plans up to the light. The problem is that it should not be their job. It should be the job of someone we actually voted for.
Gordon Brown – who commendably refused to add to the disgrace with an honours list when he left Downing Street
– is understood to be calling for rootand-branch reform in his far-reaching, potentially nation-changing blueprint for constitutional reform.
That report now appears to be stuck fast in Keir Starmer’s in-tray as his aides and advisers fret about what to do with it; worry what the focus groups will say; and gnaw their nails about adding constitutional reform to Labour’s election manifesto in case it puts off a voter or two.
They really should stop fretting, worrying and gnawing. They should do the right thing, reform the Lords and steel our New Normal with some old-fashioned principle.