House Of Lords: Appointments System

Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb Excerpts

Wednesday 19th July 2023 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the conclusion of the report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House that recent developments “have brought the appointments system into question”.

[The Lord Privy Seal (Lord True) (Con)]

My Lords, of course, the Government will carefully note the report. Our view is that the life peerage system works well—

[Lord True (Con)]

There are certain beneficiaries of the life peerage system who seem to disagree.

We think that members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission do a good job and I have every confidence that new members coming in will do the same. To tweet this morning, as the noble Baroness did, about “ongoing corrupt patronage” from Prime Ministers does not help confidence in the appointments system.

[Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb (GP)]

I am very flattered that the noble Lord knows about my tweets. That is very nice. It is obvious that the system of prime ministerial patronage is not working. Various Prime Ministers over the past couple of years have clearly put people into your Lordships’ House who have no intention of contributing to our work and probably do not have the skills to do so anyway. This is not about the House of Lords Appointments Commission, which I admire very much. The Green Party believes that that system is archaic and corrupt. Does the Leader of the House agree with me even a tiny bit?

[Lord True (Con)]

I very often agree with the noble Baroness, except I have never tweeted in my life, and I recommend her not to. The policy of the Green Party is to replace the system of appointment—which has given us all the excellent noble Lords here on these Benches in their parties—with a PR-democratically elected Chamber. Frankly, that would simply replace an accountable appointments system, where Prime Ministers are openly responsible for who they appoint, with an unaccountable appointments system of lists drawn up by secretive party secretariats.