House of Lords Appointments Commission

Lord Wallace of Saltaire Excerpts

Wednesday 6th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

First, on the question of hereditaries—a subject on which I know the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, is a great expert, with his various Bills—the truth is that the hereditary arrangements involve a by-election process that was established as part of the deal on House of Lords reform in the 1990s. It would clash with the by-election process to introduce a vetting system for hereditaries—but in any event I see that as part of House of Lords reform and we have made it clear that there are no plans for piecemeal reform.

On the issue of numbers, I have more sympathy. It is true, however, that although the Conservatives now have a lot more Peers than Labour, we still do not win all our votes and we still only have 34% of Peers, partly because of the number of Cross-Bench Peers that we now have. I think the numbers are well known and well understood; of course, if the House of Lords Commission wants to publish them, that is very much up to it. But I do have some sympathy on the point in relation to numbers.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[The Earl of Courtown (Con)]

My Lords, can we hear from the noble Lord, Lord Wallace of Saltaire? There is plenty of time for my noble friend.

[Lord Wallace of Saltaire (LD)]

Could the Minister consider changing the status of the House of Lords Commission? There has been a range of reports from think tanks and committees in the other place which have suggested that what we need to do to these bodies, which are in effect constitutional guardians—the Committee on Standards in Public Life, ACOBA, the Independent Adviser on Ministers’ Interests and others—is to put them in statutory form so they are able to stand up to Prime Ministers who do not wish to observe the conventions of public life, as Boris Johnson so clearly did not. Is this part of the Government’s agenda?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I do not see it that way. We are very glad we have a new chair of HOLAC, but we should be wary of giving even greater powers to bodies, however great and good, which are not necessarily democratically elected. That is why Prime Ministers and leaders of both parties put forward candidates.