House of Lords: Appointments Process

Viscount Waverley Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Waverley (CB)]

My Lords, ensuring the reputation of the House of Lords as a component part of the constitution is essential. However, it is right that our contribution should be reviewed periodically to ensure that we continue being a force for good and a resource central to our democracy.

When addressing the Cross Benches as Prime Minister once upon a time, Sir John Major was clear that it should be reform from within and not have reform imposed. He had the integrity of your Lordships’ House in mind. The appointments process, our numbers and how to address that, and the question of hereditary by-elections are the three elements that require the most immediate attention to rescue it from any suggestion of disrepute or irrelevance.

The appointments process should become a creature of the House on a statutory basis, reporting to the House, with all suggestion of patronage removed. A committee made up of no more than six to eight Members, drawn from the main political parties and the Cross Benches, should report to the House with the recommendations of the Prime Minister of the day that reflect party election results, with the monarch’s final approval. Applicants could come through the process as now.

Whatever emerges on this, nothing other than fully fledged support and a fair wind for the re-re-rerun of the Private Member’s Bill of the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, will do, and that is before we reduce our numbers—if necessary in a draconian cull—or the House will have to be redrawn from scratch. I add in conclusion only that there is a key role for the communications unit in better explaining the positive elements of our contribution in this place.