To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion of the report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House that recent developments “have brought the appointments system into question”.
There are certain beneficiaries of the life peerage system who seem to disagree.
We think that members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission do a good job and I have every confidence that new members coming in will do the same. To tweet this morning, as the noble Baroness did, about “ongoing corrupt patronage” from Prime Ministers does not help confidence in the appointments system.
I am very flattered that the noble Lord knows about my tweets. That is very nice. It is obvious that the system of prime ministerial patronage is not working. Various Prime Ministers over the past couple of years have clearly put people into your Lordships’ House who have no intention of contributing to our work and probably do not have the skills to do so anyway. This is not about the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which I admire very much. The Green Party believes that that system is archaic and corrupt. Does the Leader of the House agree with me even a tiny bit?
I very often agree with the noble Baroness, except I have never tweeted in my life, and I recommend her not to. The policy of the Green Party is to replace the system of appointment—which has given us all the excellent noble Lords here on these Benches in their parties—with a PR-democratically elected Chamber. Frankly, that would simply replace an accountable appointments system, where Prime Ministers are openly responsible for who they appoint, with an unaccountable appointments system of lists drawn up by secretive party secretariats.
My Lords, we have lots of time. Let us hear from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace, then we very much look forward to hearing from the noble Lord, Lord Grocott.
My Lords, when the last reform of the House took place between 1997 and 1999, the then Government stated clearly that, ad interim, it was the Government’s policy, agreed with the Conservative Opposition and the Leader of the Conservative Opposition in the Lords, that no party should have a disproportionate number of Peers in the Lords.
I remind Conservative Peers that on a current poll basis the Conservatives have exactly twice the poll percentage of public support that we do, so we are not overrepresented.
Particularly under Boris Johnson, the Conservatives have broken that agreement. Do the Government not accept that we are now in a position where any change of government would have to be accompanied either by the voluntary resignation of a substantial number of Conservative Peers or the appointment of a large number of new governmental Peers, which would be bad for the size of the House?
My Lords, I think the question of “disproportionate” was answered by Members of your Lordships’ House rather than me, so I will not add to the pain of those Benches. I think that there needs to be—and I have advocated this publicly in the House and privately—better representation of His Majesty’s Opposition in your Lordships’ House. I do not think it is generally acceptable that His Majesty’s Opposition should have fewer representatives in this House than the Cross Benches. I recognise that, and for all the criticism of the previous Prime Minister, Mr Johnson, he approved the appointment of Labour Peers. I hope that will go forward.
My Lords, a part of this report that I particularly enjoyed was the piece saying that
“the ending of the hereditary peer by-elections … is crucial”.
There are two more of these wretched men-only by-elections pending as they stand. I appeal to the Leader, who talks about proportionality. It is his responsibility—and he knows the constitution well enough—not just to speak for his party but as Leader of the House to speak for the whole House. The whole House is absolutely clear by an overwhelming majority, repeatedly tested in votes on this issue, that hereditary Peer by-elections should end. I ask him to go to his colleagues in the Cabinet, tell them that there is no defence of this system whatever—I challenge him to provide one—and say that a simple two-clause Bill would scrap them, which would be consistent with the wishes of nearly everyone in this Chamber.
I think the Government have other legislative priorities. The noble Lord knows how highly I esteem him. He is a bit like the elder Cato, who ended every speech in the Roman Senate by saying that Carthage must be destroyed. Unfortunately, Romans later looked back and said that when Carthage was destroyed was perhaps the beginning of the end of Rome. I am sure that, one day, the hereditary peerage will—and that has been long accepted—depart this House. Many will be sad of that. When it does, the full gaze of the public will turn on the life peerage and how that, in its turn, will stand the test of time.