The recent death of Conservative peer Lord Cuckney has meant that the Conservative strength in the House of Lords has now dipped below 200, leaving it with seven less seats than the cross-benchers.
According to the latest issue of The House Magazine, the composition of the House is now:
Labour 214
Cross-benchers 206
Conservatives 199
Liberal Democrats 74
Bishops 26
UKIP 2
Others 11
On leave of absence 11
There is a cross-bench peer still to be introduced.
Wow, I knew the Conservatives were smaller than Labour, but I didn’t know they were that small. Nor did I envision the Crossbenchers would be bigger than them now.
I would like to see some of the other parties shored up, as I wouldn’t like to see Labour get too much of a lead…
Does it really matter? Most Conservatives appear to want the same things as Labour anyway.
Don’t Cross-benchers disproportionately vote with the Conservatives against Labour?
I wonder when the House of Lords last had less than 200 coservative members?
CRAiG,
No, crossbenchers are straight down the middle. The work of the Constitution Unit at UCL has demonstrated quite clearly that the crossbenchers vote across the spectrum of ideological opinion, mostly dead centre but with outliers in left and right camps.
Adrian Kidney: I quite often get a similar response when I talk to groups about the current House. People are generally surprised to find that the Conservatives are the third largest group in the House. Many still think the Conservatives are the largest group in the House.
Anne Palmer: It cetainly does matter. It makes a difference to the outcomes of public policy.
CRAiG: Baroness Murphy has already replied. Baroness d’Souza, Convenor of the Cross-benchers, has also been analysing the figures – up to and including the end of the session yesterday – and may be responding to you shortly.
NHackett: You raise a good historical query. It depends whether you go on the basis of absolute numbers (the House expanded greatly in the 20th Century) or on the basis of the proportion of the House. Expressed as a proportion of the House (and including peers who normally supported the Tory cause), then one really does have to go back rather a long way: I suspect back to days before Pitt the Younger created a large raft of Tory peers.