The House of Lords needs more independent and expert members to keep a reasonable balance of peers, amid a row over plans by former prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss to hand peerages to dozens of Conservative leaning allies and donors.
Renewing concerns over the appointments process in Parliament’s upper chamber, The Lord Speaker has told The Guardian that an “eagle eye” needs to be kept on the composition of the House, which he said was in danger of falling “out of sync” with its balance of legislators.
Lord McFall, whose role as Lord Speaker is neutral, stressed he was making no direct criticism about the choice of recent peerage awards, according to the paper. But he said too many politicians with insufficient expertise in the Lords could undermine its role in taking a wider view of legislation.
“The House of Lords doesn’t challenge the House of Commons but it complements it, so the composition of the House of Lords has to be different from the House of Commons,” he said. Lord McFall is meeting Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to urge him to lift the cap limiting the number of non-party expert peers that can be created by the House of Lords Appointment Commission, currently set at a maximum of two a year.
The threshold was imposed as a temporary measure by David Cameron in 2012 but has never been lifted. From 2011 to 2022, the commission has created just 17 new peers out of nearly 400 in total over the same period.
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The Speaker, a former Labour MP who has previously called for reform of the Lords, argued that full-scale replacement with an entirely elected upper chamber would create “fundamental challenges” to the ability to deliver “good and effective legislation”. The Lords came under renewed scrutiny after Mr Johnson faced allegations of using it to reward “cronies” and wealthy party donors.
Tory peer Lady Mone has taken a leave of absence to fight allegations that she may have profited from PPE contracts worth more than £200 million after recommending a firm to ministers in the early days of the pandemic. And Ms Truss, whose 49 days in Downing Street made her the shortest serving prime minister in British political history, has reportedly been putting forward former aides and supporters as part of the honours system that allows prime ministers to recommend following their resignation.
Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called on her successor Rishi Sunak to block the nominations.
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