Much of the substantial progress made by the House of Lords in
reducing its size has been undone by recent appointments, a
committee has concluded in a report published today.
The Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the
House, chaired by , was appointed by
the former Lord Speaker, , in 2016 to
examine practical ways to reduce the number of Members. The
committee’s fourth report has been published to coincide with the
departure of as Lord
Speaker.
In previous reports the committee recommended the
numbers of Members be capped at 600, that a “two out one in”
system should be adopted,15-year fixed term limits should be
introduced and that any political appointments should be linked
to election results.
The committee finds that the ‘out’ part of the
formula to reduce the size of the House to 600 is on track with
its original recommendations, as 119 Members have left the House
since 2017 – exactly the number the Committee recommended – but
in the same period there have been 113 new appointments, nearly
double the Committee’s recommended limit of 60.
The Committee’s recommendations were originally
designed to be implemented without legislation over a period of
years. However, the committee have now concluded that this
approach is too vulnerable to political events. They have advised
that the priority is to implement a binding cap and achieve a
much faster reduction to 600 Members than originally
planned.
For the first time, the committee also recommended
that hereditary peer by-elections should be stopped but
highlighted that this can only be achieved through
legislation.
Chair of the Committee,
said:
"The House of Lords is anomalous among legislatures
in having no limit on its size, and until we put that right there
is nothing to prevent it continuing to grow.Our
committee set out some practical solutions to reduce its size to
600 and keep it there, which were supported by the House in
2017.
“The Prime Minister at the time, , also signalled a desire to reduce the size of the House
and adopted the Committee’s recommendation that she should act
with restraint in the number of new Members she
appointed.
“However, the evidence shows that a voluntary
approach is no longer working and any progress that has been made
is being undone by too many appointments. A new approach is
therefore required if we are to make serious progress in this
area.”
The Lord Speaker,
said:
“Lord Burns and his committee have done important
work and have proposed practical solutions to address the size of
the House and as Lord Speaker, I plan to raise these issues at
the highest level. Now is the time to redouble our efforts and
accelerate progress, not to give up. Ultimately, a smaller and
more effective House will be of greater benefit to the public we
are here to serve.”
Background on the Committee and its record of
proposals
Former Lord Speaker, , established the
committee in 2016 to identify practical options which would lead
to progress on reducing the size of the House of Lords. The first
set of proposals were published in October 2017. They can be
summarised as follows:
-
Cap on the size of the House of 600
members
-
Reduction to 600 on a voluntary basis over a
decade using a “two out, one in” formula, with one new
appointment for every two departures
-
Each group to achieve the same reduction as a
percentage of their membership
-
New members to be appointed on a 15-year
non-renewable fixed term basis to generate room for new
appointments
-
Allocation of political appointments to be linked
to election results, such that the overall composition of the
House would reflect the elections over the preceding 15
years
The report was agreed by the House and welcomed by
then Prime Minister .
