Many people I suspect see the House of Lords as a largely static body. Nothing could be further from the truth. We lose about twenty members a year. The three most recent losses are Lord Bledisloe, a distinguished lawyer, Lord Blaker, a former minister, and Lord Kingsland, the Shadow Lord Chancellor.
We also acquire new members, presently at a rate that exceeds the losses. Lord Freud was introduced on 29 June – he joins the Opposition Front Bench – and Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore, a law lord, took his seat the same day. He succeeds Lord Carswell. Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead, the new Europe Minister, took her seat the following day and made her maiden speech from the dispatch box the same evening. Tomorrow, the Bishop of Bristol, the Rt Rev. Michael Hill, takes his seat: he succeeds the late Bishop of Peterborough. And on Monday, Sir Alan Sugar will be introduced.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission has also announced two new life peers: the Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks and Dame Nuala O’Loan, the first Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland.
Our ranks thus keep being replenished, though at a rate that is creating problems in terms of the overall size of the House. That problem will become even more acute after the next general election.
Sir Alan Sugar? I haven’t seen anything in the news recently about his peerage. They’ve managed to keep that quite quiet, after the initial interest. I wonder if he’ll last a bit longer than some of the other political appointees of recent times. Perhaps one answer to the size of the house is a new law removing peerages from people who are appointed to a political post but then give it up after a short period of time, say two years (Lord Darzi of Denham would just be safe, but not Jones or Birmingham or Carter of Barnes – if the latter does quit as reported).
Jonathan: Or don’t give them a peerage at all. We already have precedent both ancient and new for a seat in the house tied to office. The Bishops sit without a peerage and only as long as they stay in post. More recently we have a new version in the office of (acting) Lord Great Chamberlain of England. The present holder, The Marquess of Cholmondeley, enjoys a moiety of the office not the whole. On the succession of the next monarch he will automatically lose this and the seat in the lords and it will transfer to the next acting holder of the office.
Another predictable set of new peers from the House of Lords Appointments Commission. I do wish they would try to pick outside the usual circles.
Just for clarity I have no personal issue with the individuals chosen just the lack of vision of the HOLAC.
PS – I hear Lord Aberdare won the by-election for the XB peers.
Crikey !! Can you imagine the problems it would create for Gordon Brown, and his army of newly unemployed Government ministers and cronies after the next election if the Lords decided to adopt a ‘one in, one out’ policy and a gatekeeper on the numbers ??
Where would they put the people while ‘in limbo’ ? What would they do to deal with the ‘bed-blockers’ ? Is this why the Lords voted against euthanasia ? Tune in for the answers to these and other questions…
I’ve been travelling abroad this past week and out of touch with parliamentary news. I was shocked by the death of the vigorous and fit looking Lord Kingsland, whom I had grown to admire enormously for his acute and pithy insights, his painstaking dissection of Government policy and his evident keen listening. More than once recently I felt his piercing gaze on me as I spoke and waited to see if I was going to be agreed with or not. I really will miss him enormously and feel very sad he won’t be in his place again.
I was also sad to learn Lord Malloch Brown will be going, he has the smoothest voice in the Chamber, rather off-putting at first as if he’s practised his tone too well but again I’ve grown to respect his knowledge and experience.
Can it be true that Lord Carter of Barnes has given up already? It seems it is. Hardest of all is the loss of Lord Darzi as health minister, not a surprise given the impossibility of his plan being delivered by this Government but what a crying shame.
Appointments do need to be slowed down a bit. A major advantage of the appointed-for-life upper house is that it gives strong continuity where the lower house is ever-changing and can undergo somewhat of a revolution on election night.
Thanks for the comments. I rather agree with Kyle Mulholland and Croft. I think the appointments need to be slowed down a bit; we are growing at too great a rate at the moment, with the prospect of a mass of new peers after the election. It would also be nice to see one or two somewhat more adventurous appointments.
Jonathan: As Sir Alan Sugar is to advise, and not to hold ministerial office, it is not clear why he needs to be in the Lords. Anyway, we shall see how he performs. If not well, we all know the catchphrase to use.
As the goats are there for their expertise what does that make normal ministers? : kids! ( knowledge insufficient during scrutiny? )
In theory I like the idea of goats but I’m not sure in practice it works. If the civil service know they are short term then the system militates against them offering more than the bare minimum of support and assistance. No civil servant will risk their career prospects fighting for a minister and plan they know won’t be there for long. Unless goats have the ear of the PM party and cabinet politics will tend to sideline any proposal that isn’t applepie and motherhood.