- Statement for immediate release from the Electoral Reform Society, 7th February 2020. Contact Jon Narcross – 07794728820 / mediaoffice@electoral-reform.org.uk
Campaigners have renewed calls for a halt to new appointments to the House of Lords after reports revealed the latest round of peers set to take seats in the upper house.
The ERS have today called for a moratorium of new Lords appointments and urged the Government to bring forward proposals to reform the upper house urgently.
The call comes following reports in the Times that Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to appoint a raft of new peers including a number of party donors and former politicians [1].
The new appointments, if approved, will likely take the total number of Lords to over 800 [2].
In the 2019 general election manifesto the Conservative’s committed to reviewing the role of the House of Lords as part of a new Constitution, Democracy and Rights Commission – the details of which are yet to be published [3].
Over 100,000 people have signed an ERS petition launched in December calling for abolition and replacement of the House of Lords [4].
Willie Sullivan, Senior Director, Electoral Reform Society said:
“Today we’re seeing yet again the Government play politics with the honours system and announcing a new round of unelected legislators set to join a House of Lords already bursting at the seams.
“Whilst the Lord Speaker has called for restraint on nominations to the Lords, the Prime Minister continues to pack the Lords with a new round of peers – cramming more political allies into the already bloated chamber.
“That many of these appointees are mired in scandal already does little to improve the reputation of the unelected, unaccountable upper house – which is increasingly becoming a home for political cronies and dodgy donors rather than the serious scrutiny chamber it claims to be.
“It’s hard to take the government’s talk on reforming our constitution and improving our democracy seriously when they continue to gift lifetime appointments to Parliament as an act of political patronage. These new peers must be the last.
“It is no wonder faith in our democracy is at a record low. Voters are tired of unelected power in politics and are crying out for reform of our broken system. The government needs to step up now and put an end to this political charade.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
[1] https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/peter-cruddas-and-daniel-hannan-among-tory-donors-and-brexit-rebels-on-johnsons-peerage-list-5j9jzwq2k
[2] https://members.parliament.uk/members/Lords
[3] Conservative Party 2019 Manifesto https://assets-global.website-files.com/5da42e2cae7ebd3f8bde353c/5dda924905da587992a064ba_Conservative%202019%20Manifesto.pdf
[4] https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-no-more-unelected-peers-scrap-and-replace-the-house-of-lords-now-8a773851-b785-4652-9dc5-79b07a0de8d4?recruiter=1028844552&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=share_petition&recruited_by_id=ce1382d0-20eb-11ea-8758-2ba6e1fda309