House of Lords: Party Balance

Baroness Smith of Basildon Excerpts

Monday 9th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

I am not sure I entirely understand my noble friend’s point. However, I will say that new lists are a matter for the Prime Minister. The normal process is followed, as noble Lords will know, starting with retiring Prime Ministers making proposals. HOLAC, a very important committee, gives consideration to the probity of those appointments, and in due course the Prime Minister of the day makes recommendations to the sovereign. When we look at the composition of the House, it is necessary to keep in mind that any adjustments have to be compatible with our role in scrutinising and revising legislation, while respecting the primacy of the Commons and the associated conventions between the two Houses. These are important points.

[Baroness Smith of Basildon (Lab)]

My Lords, at last that was something I can agree with the Minister on. Does she accept that this House works best and does its best work when it is in balance? Her figures, I thought, were somewhat selective. When the Labour Party left government in 2010, after nearly 13 years, Labour was 29% of the entire House, and the Official Opposition—then the Conservative Party—was 26%. After 13 years of government, we had fairly balanced appointments. In the last 13 years, we have had the coalition Government and Conservative Governments. The Government are now 34% of this House and the Official Opposition has only 22%. Does that not indicate the unfairness in the appointment system? It is all very well saying that the leader of the Opposition gets nominations, but they only get those given to them by the Prime Minister. The Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Norton, wisely says that 20% of nominations to the House should be for the Cross Benches. Should there not be a similar balance between the Government and the Opposition?

[Baroness Neville-Rolfe (Con)]

In a very fetching way, the noble Baroness raises some very important constitutional questions. When giving consideration to the composition of the House, we really do need to remember what its role is. It needs to take into account the ability to scrutinise and revise legislation which, I agree, includes the Opposition Benches but, of course, the Opposition Benches are not only the Labour Benches. It needs to take into account the results of the last general election and another statistic is that the Conservatives won 56% of the seats at the last general election. Finally, and I think this is very important, the quality of individuals put forward as Peers must be taken into account.