Labour to add dozens of peers to back its policies and improve gender balance

The Conservatives have 104 more peers than Labour, while fewer than a third of the 784 members of the chamber are women. Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AFP/Getty Images

Labour is to appoint dozens of peers within weeks in an attempt to push through its policies and improve the representation of women in the House of Lords, the Guardian has learned.

Senior Labour figures have drawn up a list of peerages to bolster the party benches and help implement its legislative programme if it wins the election on 4 July. The Conservatives have 104 more peers than Labour, while fewer than a third of the 784 members of parliament’s second chamber are women.