House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Pete Wishart and Charles Walker

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

I want to go on to forensically look at the membership of the House of Lords, and I hope the hon. Gentleman listens carefully to the type of people we have assembled in that place because they are undemocratic horrors. There are now 812 Members of the House of Lords, making it the second largest legislature in the world behind the People’s Congress of China.

[Mr Charles Walker (Broxbourne) (Con)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that we should reduce the size of the House of Lords and that we could do so simply? We could get rid of 21 of the 26 bishops, along with 92 hereditary peers, and we could have mandatory retirement, whereby peers retire after 20 years—this would be based not on age, but on length of service. That would easily take care of 212-plus peers and the House of Lords would be smaller than House of Commons.

[Pete Wishart]

I say to the hon. Gentleman, whose interest in this issue I recognise, that that would be a start but that much more needs to be done to address the anomalies of the political circus down the corridor. I take the point made by the hon. Member for Lichfield (Michael Fabricant). He is right to say that there are people serving in the Lords who are technocrats and the great and the good. These people have been appointed by the independent Lords Appointments Commission, but they are a tiny minority. The House of Lords tries to project this image of itself as inviting in the great and the good to help us with our legislation, but the overwhelming majority of the membership of that House is appointed by a Prime Minister from the list supplied by the leaders of the UK parties. That is why we find the cronies, the placemen, the donors and the failed or former MPs.