Peerages: Recommendations

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 3rd March 2022 Grand Committee

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I am very happy to speak in Comrade Balfe’s debate. Now that I know his true provenance, I feel that he has hidden virtues I was unaware of.

I rise to speak wondering why there is a debate about this at all. It seems so self-evident that people who have undergone due process should have what has happened presented transparently in a proper form to the Crown, and if there is a divergence then the alternative case should be put. I cannot really see that anybody could take a position other than being in favour of all that.

I am, of course, completely new to the world of politics. The wiles and Machiavellian goings-on that I have vaguely become aware of over the years will, I am sure, fit me for that final deliberation at the pearly gates, when I wonder whether or not I am going to get in. Granted that I have, relatively speaking, a naivety on these things, I cannot understand how we are where we are. In 2004, when I was admitted to your Lordships’ House, Tony Blair’s Government had a very considerable majority in the Commons. When I came into the House of Lords there were, roughly speaking, 200 Labour Lords and 200 Conservative Lords. I rejoiced at the fact that someone from my background could come into a debating Chamber where cases had to be won, majorities had to be put together and arguments had to be presented that won the approval of those assembled. No Government, simply because it had even a whacking majority, as the Labour Party did then, could simply assume that it would carry the day all the time in the Lords.

Then, of course, we became aware that things were going on that got into the newspapers. We put together a committee, headed by the noble Lord, Lord Burns. Its task was to try to introduce some order as it was sought to bring the numbers in the House of Lords roughly into equivalence with the House of Commons. The formula was simple; it was debated on the Floor of the House and it was agreed, and I thought that we had something that would sort out some of the excesses and wrongdoings of the Chamber as it was.

All these years later, when we look at the figures, we find that there is no longer a rough equivalence between Labour and the Conservatives, but that the Labour Party has, in fact, followed the advice of the Burns committee —one in for two out—that the Liberal Democrats have done the same, but that the Conservatives simply have not. It is not only that: they have grossly inflated the numbers coming in so that instead of a rough equivalence, we now see that there are 258 Peers the Conservatives might expect to count on for their support and 168 Labour Members. I cannot understand how something that was put together out of the deliberations of the House of Lords and which got approval from all sides of the House should end up with us being in a position—self-regulating as we are supposed to be—that leads to an imbalance of this kind.

I know that in our party meetings we can talk about our record in this respect but I must say to Conservative Members, and those taking part in this debate in particular: please tell us that you are as anxious as the rest of us that the things we have agreed in this way are not followed through on. In one case, someone who was rejected by the commission had that rejection overruled by the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is under fire for a lot of things at the moment; he should be under the same kind of fire for the way in which this situation has come to pass.

I am new to politics. I hope to find probity and integrity but something like this puts me on the side of the tabloid press, which thinks that we are all a lot of funny people.