House of Lords (Peerage Nominations) Bill [HL]

Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury Excerpts

Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Sherbourne of Didsbury (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by congratulating the noble Baroness, Lady Mattinson, on her most accomplished speech this morning. We are old friends and colleagues from another place, and although we have different political views, I look forward very much to hearing more from her in the period to come. I also thank my noble friend Lord Norton for the way in which he introduced this Bill, although I am afraid that I do not support it—I will explain why.

When the House debated the Burns report some years ago, I was one of the few Members who spoke against the recommendations. That was because it proposed that the House of Lords, an unelected House, should decide on the size and composition of itself, and I thought that was fundamentally wrong. I have the same objection, I am afraid, to the Bill before us today. It proposes to take away from the Prime Minister the power to appoint Members of this House. The last word on who sits and does not sit in this House would rest with members of the House of Lords Appointments Commission—not the elected House of Commons, the elected Government or the elected Prime Minister, but the unelected HOLAC. This is absolutely no criticism of the members of HOLAC; as far as I can tell, they are of unimpeachable integrity and wise and experienced —but they are not elected.

The Bill sets out two criteria, one of which is “conspicuous merit”, although I know my noble friend said he was not wedded to that particular form of words. I looked up “merit” in the dictionary, and it is defined as “excellence”. Of course, if we were looking for excellence in nursing, the noble Baroness, Lady Watkins, would pass with flying colours, and if we were looking at media, the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, would pass with flying colours. But it is such a woolly definition, and I am not sure why we should not have people in the House of “inconspicuous merit” as well.

I return to my core point. I cannot accept that Members of this House should be appointed by unelected people, however great and good they are. They are not elected.