Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it was deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber on Wednesday when the government announced the creation of 34 new peers. Number 10 has argued that this is necessary to boost Labour’s numbers and counter the Conservatives dominance in the Lords, which has led to them being able to slow down and frustrate the government’s agenda in the upper house.
Firstly, this highlights the utter absurdity of the current way the unelected Lords operates, where a completely unrestrained system means parties end up in an endless arms race of new peerages to try and assert dominance in the upper chamber. The result: the public watching dozens more peers being added to a chamber that already has 800 members and is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress.
Yet to add to this absurdity, this latest list means that the government has now already more than replaced the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing. Prior to this Keir Starmer had created 62 new peers, adding on the 34 created this week that is 96 new peers since the start of the government. The hereditary peers haven’t even left the Lords yet as the bill to remove them is still going through its last ‘ping pong’ stages of the legislative process.
Hereditary peers returning as life peers
We have often applauded the government for ending the remaining hereditary peers, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But even this reform is now being undermined as in Wednesday’s list the Liberal Democrats nominated two hereditary peers, and a third cross-bench hereditary was also nominated, to stay in the chamber as life peers, ensuring the practice of hereditary legislating lives on in Parliament for years to come.
Adding more and more peers to the Lords with total abandon may make sense in some quarters of Westminster, but to the public this will seem a complete farce. Every new peer gets a taxpayer-funded job-for-life, influencing our laws with zero democratic accountability.
But this is not just about the ridiculous way people are appointed to the upper House of Parliament, there is a wider and far graver issue at stake here. That is that public trust in politics is at a record low, a fact that is deeply alarming for anyone who cares about the health of our democracy.
‘Business as usual’ at Westminster needs to end
It is hard to see how trust can be rebuilt while the public are routinely treated to the squalid spectacle of prime ministers ladling out jobs-for-life in parliament to friends, allies and donors. This grubby ‘business as usual’ Westminster approach to the Lords needs to be broken.
Back in 2022 when Keir Starmer described the House of Lords as ‘indefensible’, he also proposed a solution: make it an elected chamber that better represents all four corners of this country. We could not agree more. It is now time for the Prime Minister to make good on his pledge and reform the upper House into a smaller democratic chamber that is accountable to the British people.
Enough is enough, we need to put a complete halt to new peers until the house has been properly reformed.
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