My plan for slimming down the bloated House of Lords
As bonkers ideas go, shipping the House of Lords to Stoke-onTrent while its chamber is being repaired is rather a classic. It would cost a fortune. It would require the relocation of countless support staff. Even in the age of Zoom it would make the conduct of effective business nearly impossible. And even my limited understanding of the constitution tells me it would be contrary to all parliamentary practice since the Civil War.
It would, however, sort the wheat from the chaff. Stoke is a genial place – its most famous son, the great Arnold Bennett, was after all the man who coined the important phrase “the great cause of cheering us all up” – but only the most hardcore peer would ever work there. However, that surely is the route to avoiding the Potteries experience altogether.
Around 800 people are now eligible to sit in the Lords. It is far too many. When reform was discussed in the 1920s it was thought 300 would be enough. In the 1960s, a House of around 250 was proposed. There are now too many peers for proper debates or discussions to be fully accommodated.
Many appointees – especially those of the present Prime Minister and his immediate predecessors – have had a comical effect on the calibre of the place. Some turn up purely to claim their attendance allowance, which has become a form of semi-aristocratic old-age pension or dole.
Lord Fowler, the last Lord Speaker (and a very good one) tried vainly to engage ministers in debate about reducing the numbers. Given there is no question of our being worse governed by cutting the numbers of peers, each party’s chief whip, or the convenor of the cross-benchers and the independent peers, should be ordered to draw up a list culling 60 per cent of their peers – so a house of 800 would become one of 320.
They could then meet in the dining room of a requisitioned London club, and would work exceptionally efficiently. If they resist, then Stoke it is. I am sure one of those lovely Wedgwood commemorative plates could be designed to mark their long stay.