Four Conservative MPs who were loyal to Boris Johnson and have been nominated for peerages have agreed to delay accepting them to avoid triggering byelections.
Rishi Sunak is facing pressure to block the former PM’s “conveyor belt of cronies” after Johnson told Tory MPs to hold back on heading to the Lords until the end of the current parliament so the party doesn’t face a number of potentially difficult election challenges.
The ultra-loyal Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary; Alok Sharma, the Cop26 president; Alister Jack, the Scottish secretary; and Nigel Adams are set to be on Johnson’s resignation list.
Shaun Bailey, the former London mayoral candidate who faced a backlash for attending a mid-lockdown Christmas party, is also said to be on the former prime minister’s list.
Johnson’s former chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield; deputy Ben Gascoigne; adviser Ross Kempsell, 30; and Charlotte Owen, who is thought to be in her 20s, will get seats in the Lords. Kempsell and Owen are set to become the youngest ever life peers.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has urged Sunak to block Johnson’s “disreputable demands”.
“This disgraced ex-prime minister’s plot to dodge democracy by trying to reward his MP lackeys with promised jobs for life in the House of Lords yet again puts the Tory party’s interests before the public’s,” she said.
“This underhand attempt to game the system by installing a conveyor belt of cronies and skewing parliament in the Tories’ favour for decades to come should never see the light of day.
“Rishi Sunak should make it clear in no uncertain terms that he will refuse to do Boris Johnson’s bidding and reject his disreputable demands.”
The work and pensions secretary, Mel Stride, backed reforms of the Lords, including to its swelling size, but Downing Street said changes were not a priority for the government.
The prime minister’s official spokesperson said: “The House of Lords plays an important and valuable role in scrutinising and revising legislation. We are committed to looking at the role of the Lords but it needs to be carefully considered in the round.
“Further reform is not an immediate priority as we tackle some of the issues that the UK faces.”
While the Lords speaker, John McFall, does not comment on individual nominees to become peers, he has previously called for a tougher vetting process for those entering the upper house.
In a letter to the SNP earlier this year about another controversial Johnson peerage, to his friend Evgeny Lebedev, the newspaper proprietor, McFall said there was “a case for examination of the appointments process, including a more robust vetting system”.
McFall’s predecessor as speaker, former Conservative minister Norman Fowler, had been more outspoken, saying the chamber was far too big, with an excessive number of “passengers” who contributed little.
The Lords currently has 773 sitting members, making it the second-biggest legislative chamber in the world after China’s National People’s Congress.
