David Cameron has been criticised for packing the Lords with new peers. Despite his calls for a "wholly elected" second chamber, Nick Clegg endorses the practice.
Lords reform is back in the news. The Guardian’s Allegra Stratton tells us that a no vote to AV could trigger a big push for change to the second chamber while a prominent group of cross-party parliamentarians have told David Cameron to stop packing the Lords with new peers.
The UCL Constitution Unit’s report, ‘House full: Time to get a grip on Lords appointments‘, which is supported by 15 peers and MPs, makes eye watering reading. As the chart below shows, in his short tenure as Prime Minister, David Cameron has already created 117 new Lords. Indeed, even taking into account Gordon Brown’s 32 resignation honours and Labour’s 13 resolution peers, David Cameron is creating peers at a rate ten six times faster than his predecessor, Gordon Brown, and three times twice as faster than as Tony Blair.
Speaking at the Institute for Public Policy Research yesterday on “the new politics“, Nick Clegg reiterated his support for a “wholly elected second chamber”. I asked him whether it was possible to hold that view alongside support for the rapid increase in the number of new Lords appointments. As Sunder Katwala mentioned in his blog on the event, the Deputy Prime Minister failed to answer my question but his office were good enough to get back to me.
A spokesman for the DPM told me that Clegg did not support UCL’s call for “An immediate moratorium on Lords appointments, to be lifted only once the number of members eligible to attend the chamber has dropped below 750”. The spokesman went on to say:
“The Government will be bringing forward a Draft Bill next month proposing a wholly or mainly elected House of Lords. This will be elected using proportional representation in order to ensure it is reflective of the way people voted.
However, introducing this will take time and in the meantime Lords appointments will be made with exactly the same aim – creating a second chamber that is reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election. The current system of appointing peers will therefore remain until the Government’s reforms are in place.”
Supporting a wholly elected House of Lords and making the most rapid set of appointments in a generation strike me as inconsistent positions. Could Clegg’s pragmatic approach have anything to do with the fact that the Lib Dem cohort in the Lords has increased by 24 to 93 since the election – a whopping increase of 35%? New politics, indeed.
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23 Responses to “Despite calls for “wholly elected” Lords, Clegg supports Cameron’s peer packing”
Will Straw
Tim – Fair cop on the resignations honours but even if you take Brown’s 32 peers + the Labour’s 13 dissolution peers into account, that’s still a whopping 72 new peers. On a pro rata basis, this is 79 peers – more than double Blair’s rate and six times Brown’s. Still eye watering.
And what of Clegg’s hypocrisy? Sunder is absolutely right, the Coalition Programme policy to equalise the House of Lords is an undemocratic fix for the Government.
Tim Worstall
Hey, I’m UKIP, recall? Any system of PR for the Upper House is going to increase our representation hugely. Go for it.
Might even stand myself. As if that’s not a good enough argument for you all to be against PR for the Upper House.
Kevin leonard
PR for the lords bye all means but restrict the numbers to 299 and ensure there is to be no whip system in the future.
It would not be a hard thing to do..in a simplistic way double up on the “new” constituencies come 2015 first elect the government then disband the house of lords and hold elections six months later, who cares if that means 900 out of work lords? those who wish to stay on the gravy train would have to work for their own tickets as they would have to stand(with tax payers help) on their own accord and not with the backing of a party behind them. Saying they support the views of whatever party would be allowed but electioneering with party money or indeed their own money would be banned.
No National presentations by candidates would be required as all they would be looking to do is secure the votes of their constituents.
Ed W
Sunder,
Maybe 60% of all party-affiliated peers is fair, but it’s certainly not the principle that determined the number of Lords during the last government. As you point out, Labour had 30% of all Lords, or 44% of all party-affiliated peers. This on a 35% share of the vote – certainly not fair by your yardstick.
If we are to assign the number of Lords to the coalition in the same ratio to share of vote as Labour had, they should have 51% of all peers, i.e. a majority. Fair’s fair!
Ed W
Tris and others – this is supposed to be a stopgap before an elected Lords is introduced. If this government fail to introduce an elected Lords, I hope it becomes larger and more unwieldy with every election, until it gets so unworkable that it has to be replaced. Lloyd George had the right idea all along.