House of Lords: Size

Lord Truscott Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord McFall of Alcluith [V]]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his question. It is a follow-up to the Question that he asked me on 23 June last year, and I promised to take that issue to the Procedure Committee. Both that committee and the Burns committee are very exercised by this issue, but the matter rests with legislation and with the Government. I will refer his Question again to the Procedure Committee, but in the meantime it might be helpful for him to talk to the Burns committee itself.

[Lord Truscott (Ind Lab) [V]]

Surely a painless way to reduce the size of your Lordships’ House would be to abolish hereditary by-elections, as proposed in the admirable Bill from by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott. Does the Senior Deputy Speaker see this as a possible way forward?

[Lord McFall of Alcluith [V]]

Under the Life Peerages Act, Her Majesty has the power to confer a peerage for life, and that peerage entitles the holder

“to receive writs of summons to attend the House of Lords and sit and vote therein accordingly”.

The committee of the House does not have any say over that issue. So, in terms of the hereditary Peers’ by-elections, the Procedure Committee met earlier this week and we have deferred the by-elections for a further period. Information on that will be forthcoming soon for the entire House.