House of Lords: Membership

Lord Tebbit Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Young of Cookham]

As I said, the Government are considering the report and will make their views known shortly. But to pick up the point that the noble Baroness just made, in her speech—she made a good speech, if I may say so, as did my noble friend and the Leader of the Lib Dems—she said:

“It is not about giving up patronage or appointments but about showing some restraint, as it used to be”.—[Official Report, 19/12/17; col. 2105.]


The Prime Minister has demonstrated restraint. Putting on one side David Cameron’s resignation honours, in the past 18 months the Prime Minister has appointed eight new Peers: five Cross-Benchers and three Ministers. I think that is demonstrating the restraint that the noble Baroness has just asked for.

[Lord Tebbit (Con)]

My Lords—

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords—

[Noble Lords]

Tebbit!

[Lord Tebbit]

My Lords, is there not another way that this little dilemma might be resolved? It is quite clear that when we look at the electorate as a whole and the votes that have been cast in recent elections, the Lib Dem Peers are grossly overrepresented here. Suppose 50 of them did the decent thing and resigned, this would all be resolved.

[Lord Young of Cookham]

If I may say so, my noble friend’s question is addressed not to me but to the Benches opposite. It is indeed the case that on almost any objective basis the Liberal Democrats are overrepresented. In credit to them, they actually recognised this during the debate. The noble Lord, Lord Newby, when he spoke on behalf of the Lib Dems, recognised that their numbers would have to come down under the proposals of the Burns report. However, for the Lib Dems to unilaterally cut their numbers without anybody else doing anything at all would be to exhibit a generosity for which the Liberal Democrats are not well known.