House of Lords: Appointments Process

Lord Hannan of Kingsclere Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannan of Kingsclere (Con)]

My Lords, I am afraid that what I am about to say is going to be very unpopular on all sides. I console myself with the thought that I am used to this; I was in the European Parliament as a Eurosceptic. I console myself also with the thought that your Lordships are much more decorous, polite, kind and generous than my former colleagues.

None the less, here goes: I do not believe that it is sustainable for us to have a Chamber of the legislature appointed by the Executive. If this were happening in North Korea or South Sudan we would regard it as absolutely intolerable. The primary function of Parliament —if the other place traces its ancestry back to 1265, I think we can trace ours back to the Great Charter itself in 1215—is to hold the Government to account. That task must be enfeebled if the Executive of the day can nominate one of the two Chambers.

I would like there to be not a revolutionary change, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, says, but a considered and serious overhaul. I am afraid that I do not believe that nibbling at the edges makes any difference. I do not think that the view of this Chamber outside is affected by the number of people here; in fact, it was not the point he was trying to make but when my noble friend Lord Balfe quoted the numbers in the Division Lobbies he showed that it was about the right size in practice, if not in theory. Nor do I really think it is about the kinds of people coming in. We all have our own ideas about what kinds of people should not be here. Some might say that there are too many donors, quango-crats, white people or ex-MPs, but no two people will agree on those criteria and, unless we are prepared to go all the way and have some kind of more directly representative or elected Chamber, we are never going to get an answer.

I would like us to look at this properly in the form of a royal commission: a trusty if somewhat staid instrument that can take into account a number of other considerations to do with the balance between devolved and central institutions, the voting system and all the rest of it, and then come to a considered and measured conclusion.