Oral Answers to Questions

Ian Blackford Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

3. If he will bring forward proposals to limit the size of the membership of the House of Lords.

[Ian Blackford (Ross, Skye and Lochaber) (SNP)]

5. If he will bring forward proposals to limit the size of the membership of the House of Lords.

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Chris Skidmore)]

The Government agree that the House of Lords cannot grow indefinitely. However, comprehensive reform is not a priority for this Parliament, given the growing number of pressing priorities elsewhere. Nevertheless, when there are measures that can command consensus, we would welcome working with peers to look at taking them forward.

[Chris Skidmore]

This was raised at an important debate on 26 October, when the House agreed with the Government that this is not a priority. The Government agree that House of Lords reform is not one of the priorities of the British people: a recent YouGov study showed that just 18% of the public think House of Lords reform is a priority. I am amazed that the Scottish National party has chosen this issue to campaign on. Why not campaign on education or on health—why not campaign on the issues that matter to the Scottish people?

[Ian Blackford]

What an outrage to democracy that answer from the Minister was. We have the ridiculous situation that there are more unelected Members of the House of Lords than MPs living in the highlands of Scotland, yet this Government want to cut democratic participation. We will be left with three Members of Parliament for half the landmass of Scotland and the highlands. That is not democratic accountability. Cut the Lords, not MPs.

[Mr Speaker]

It was difficult to detect a question there, but the intellectual dexterity of the Minister will enable him briefly to reply.