House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Russell of Liverpool Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Russell of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, I praise the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for his perseverance on this subject. I spoke at Second Reading on 18 November 2022, and am privileged to do so again. Once again, his timing is exemplary. The previous debate took place in the wake of a previous Prime Minister’s rather generous showering of new Peers on this Chamber—a syndrome I have referred to on more than one occasion as long Boris. This time, we have a new Government and a lot of talk about House of Lords reform, most of it far less focused than this quite small, modest Bill.

I speak as somebody who is a hereditary Peer of clearly inconspicuous merit, but somebody who has professionally advised on appointments for 31 years as a headhunter. Putting boards and executive teams together is rather like constructing a jigsaw; each piece is slightly different. I also chair a fairly active nominations and governance committee.

If we look at what this House does best, we find that it is very simple: it is scrutiny of legislation and it is committee work. In the House of Commons, it is all about numbers and getting your legislation through or opposing the other side through thick and thin. In the House of Lords, it is more about getting it right, which sometimes means losing a vote or having thoughtful interventions—heaven forbid—by one’s own party colleagues. Getting it right could be greatly improved by a more thoughtful and strategic approach to who is appointed and why. The people’s Peers are quite a good example of that.

If we look at the 30 new colleagues announced on the Government’s side in December, we see that 22 of them—in other words, 73%—are a combination of ex-Members of Parliament and ex-members of trade unions or leaders of unions, and that six have worked with and for the party. I in no way question their collective or individual merits. Indeed, as Nick Thomas-Symonds wrote on 5 December:

“It is for party leaders to consider who is best placed to represent their party in the House of Lords when nominating individuals for appointment”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/12/24; col. 21WS.]


Is this a sufficiently thoughtful and strategic way of building the necessary capability for this House to do what it does best? We should use the opportunity given by the debate about reform to look more broadly at the bigger picture. Justification versus assertion is a good basis on which to proceed.

Clearly, this Bill is a stalking horse, and a very good one, for thinking about appointment to this rather extraordinary institution as part of a broader debate about reform. I urge the Government to co-opt it and to assist the noble Lord, Lord Norton, in nudging us bravely into the second quarter of the 21st century.