House of Lords: Size

Baroness Hayman Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord True (Con)]

My Lords, my noble friend raises implicitly the question of whether some Peers who are not legislators might be appointed. This idea has been put forward at various times historically. Currently, the position is that they are.

[Baroness Hayman (CB) [V]]

My Lords, when we last debated this issue on 5 January, the Minister said that neither the present nor the previous Prime Minister had assented to any limit on numbers, but the previous Prime Minister did agree to exercise restraint in appointments to the House in response to the Lord Speaker’s letter following the Burns report as part of an overall acceptance of the need to reduce numbers. Is that no longer the Government’s policy?

[Lord True (Con)]

What I said, which I repeat, is that the previous Prime Minister did not accept the committee’s recommendation to commit to a specific cap on numbers, and that remains the position. My right honourable friend Mr Johnson has only recently become Prime Minister. I suggest that we judge him at the end of his term rather than at this time, when, frankly, the Conservative Party has been underrepresented in your Lordships’ House.