Peers should be more robustly vetted for suitability after public “disquiet” over candidates who appear to have been picked for being big donors or friends of those in power, the new head of the House of Lords appointments commission has said.
Ruth Deech, a leading lawyer and academic who was chosen by the government to lead the commission, said she wanted to push for peers to pass not just propriety vetting but an assessment of suitability, to determine whether they merit their appointment.
She would not be drawn on specific peers who may not be suitable to sit in the House of Lords. However, she told parliament’s public administration committee that there was “disquiet” about “people who apparently do not have the requisite qualities but appear to have been nominated because they have made very large donations or they are friends of people in power”.
Boris Johnson put forward a string of former advisers, donors and political friends for elevation to the House of Lords, and pushed for the approval of a peerage for Evgeny Lebedev, the newspaper proprietor and son of the former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev, despite initial security concerns that were later withdrawn.
There has also been a controversy over Johnson’s nomination of two of the youngest ever peers in Charlotte Owen, a former junior No 10 aide, and Ross Kempsell, a senior Conservative official and former journalist.
There is also likely to be a furore in the coming weeks over the peerage list submitted by Liz Truss, who lasted seven weeks as prime minister.
Deech gave her assessment of the challenges facing the House of Lords appointments commission in evidence to the public administration and constitutional affairs committee, which approved her in the role on Thursday.
She told the MPs: “I would like to see every nominee assessed for suitability and not just propriety. Propriety is of course necessary, but it does not go far enough. I do not know if I can achieve it, but I think that every nomination ought to be checked, even if it is a bishop or a hereditary peer.”
Deech also suggested there should be a statement from the person nominating the peer and the person being nominated as to why they deserved a seat in the House of Lords. She said more transparency about what they had done and what they themselves hoped to do would help, and that it “would be public and available for interested people to read”.
Asked what might determine suitability, she suggested adherence to the Nolan principles of public life, but also “past achievement; integrity; not just policy formation, but the willingness and ability to see a policy through; contributions to public life; and what Sir Keir Starmer called oracy, which is the ability to present an argument fluently.”
On those peers who have given big donations, the new chair said she agreed with one of her predecessors that it “should not be a bar” but that “making a huge donation is not enough in itself” and that “one has to look at their other qualities”.
On the size of the House of Lords, Deech said it was not within her remit, but she did say she did not believe having 26 bishops was “particularly necessary”.
Acknowledging the limitation of the commission’s powers, she suggested it might be possible “to make it very plain and accepted to all nominees that they must turn up, do the work, not take years of leave of absence, and be prepared to give an account of themselves every now and then as to their contribution and attendance.”
