House of Lords: Membership

Lord Dubs Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2012 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Dubs]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they have any plans to increase the current membership of the House of Lords, pending their current proposals for reform.

[The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde)]

My Lords, in line with the coalition’s programme for government, the Government are working towards the objective of creating a second Chamber that reflects the share of the votes secured by the political parties at the last general election.

[Lord Dubs]

Oh. [Laughter.] My Lords, on 24 January, the Leader of the House said:

“There is no plan to pack the House with at least 60 government supporters. It would look absurd and it would be absurd”.—[Official Report, 24/1/12; col. 919.]

Given the Answer that he has just given to my Question, does he agree that it is doubtful whether he could find a single Member of this House who thinks that increasing its number is a good idea, both on grounds of cost and of making this House look even more absurd than it does with an increase in numbers? I ask the Government to think again about this stupid idea.

[Lord Strathclyde]

My Lords, the noble Lord can ask whatever he wants, but the Government’s position is the one I outlined in my original Answer. It is up to the Prime Minister, as it has been up to previous Prime Ministers, to decide whether he wishes to make more Peers. It is widely known that a draft Bill to reform your Lordships’ House is before a Joint Committee that may well turn into a Bill in the next Session of Parliament. But in any case, since the general election a number of deaths have sadly been recorded among your Lordships, which means that there has been a reduction from the high reached earlier on. Even if my right honourable friend the Prime Minister were to replace the number of Peers who have died, we would not be at the all-time high we saw recently.