House of Lords: Size

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Wednesday 27th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[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.

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, a recent Times editorial, entitled “House of Cronies”, referred to the high proportion of Brexiteers and Tory donors among the 59 new Peers already made by the Prime Minister, in particular the nomination of a Tory donor guilty of corruption and rejected by the Appointments Commission. Does the Prime Minister not recognise that he is tempting any future non-Conservative Government to appoint inflated numbers to balance the old number? Is the Prime Minister really trying to make the House look ridiculous?

[Lord True (Con)]

Absolutely not, my Lords. The perception of the House depends on the behaviour and conduct of the House. I am not going to follow, as I refused to before, any kind of ad hominem attack on any new Member—I welcome them all. As for the comment on Brexiteers, I did not notice a surfeit of those before the last election.