Boris has picked some worthy new peers, but their realm is ripe for reform
House of Lords, 2020. (PA Images)
Patronage is the lubrication of politics: often indefensible, always indispensable. Next week Boris Johnson will reward those who made Brexit, his premiership and his election triumph possible. A few will also be elevated ex officio. Together with those nominated by Jeremy Corbyn and other Opposition parties, the number of new peerages may be as high as 28. The list has yet to pass the final stage of scrutiny and some names may be rejected by the Lords’ appointments committee when it meets on Tuesday.
Given that the House of Lords already has almost 800 members, this mass creation has already been criticised. It is the only upper chamber in any bicameral Parliament to be larger than the lower one. A voluntary system to encourage retirement for elderly life peers has failed to reduce the numbers significantly, especially as so many now live to a great age. The House has often been called “the best club in London”, but it increasingly resembles an old people’s home.
Age and infirmity are only one problem. Another is that some of the tycoons who receive peerages for political donations are seldom seen again. At the opposite end of the scale, there are peers who seem mainly interested in collecting their attendance allowance, which is currently £305 per diem, not counting travel expenses and subsidised hospitality. A majority of peers are former politicians or other figures from public life. Most of these are not wealthy, so it is not unreasonable that they should receive some remuneration for performing their primary role of scrutinising legislation. Yet the public is not entirely wrong to suspect that only a minority of peers genuinely sing for their suppers.
The proposed new peers include some who clearly deserve the honour purely on merit. Kenneth Clarke has real achievements to his credit over a long ministerial career that included two of the great offices of state, but has also distinguished himself as a merciless critic of his own party. Philip Hammond was an unmemorable Foreign Secretary and Chancellor of the Exchequer, but he too has done the state some service. Ruth Davidson transformed the politics of her native Scotland and is young enough to forge a new career in the Lords. Iain Austin and John Woodcock are both Labour stalwarts who refused to stay silent as the party they loved was transformed into a far-Left cult. In particular, Austin put his head above the parapet by resigning over Labour’s institutional anti-Semitism.
Among the businessmen (boardrooms are still conspicuously pale and male), Jon Moynihan stands out as a venture capitalist who staked everything on Brexit. The Lords has too few entrepreneurs and too many grandees, but two of the other names on the list, Peter Cruddas and Michael Spencer, have both been rejected during vetting before. The Prime Minister won’t be the only one hoping that they have cleaned up their acts.
Last but certainly not least, two Conservative intellectuals have been recommended for peerages: Charles Moore and Daniel Hannan. (Full disclosure: I have worked under and alongside both for quarter of a century and count them as friends.) Moore has crowned a stellar career in journalism with his three-volume biography of Margaret Thatcher. As an MEP and a writer for the Telegraph, Hannan has known the EU as an insider and made himself the most cogent of its critics. Both men are considerable orators who will fill the red benches whenever they speak. By elevating Moore and Hannan, Boris Johnson is breaking with the Tory habit of overlooking writers and thinkers for the Lords. One can only hope that they will be the first of a large crop of intellectual peers who have swum against the tide in academia, journalism and the arts.
One Labour nomination for the peerage is thought to have been vetoed, at least temporarily: John Bercow. The former Speaker is now under investigation for allegedly bullying staff himself and turning a blind eye to similar misconduct by MPs during his long tenure in the Commons — allegations which he denies. If Bercow becomes the first Speaker not to receive a peerage in modern times, it will send a powerful message.
Reform of Parliament is long overdue. It is time that the Speaker’s two roles — chairing parliamentary debates and managing the Commons — were separated. And nobody should be entitled to be a member of the legislature merely by virtue of having held a particular office. Boris Johnson has already floated the idea of the upper house sitting in York — almost certainly an impractical notion, but by no means his final word on Lords reform. After the spectacle that the mother of Parliaments made of herself over Brexit, the public would like to see both Houses put themselves in order. Boris has the majority required to grasp the nettle. He should get on with it before inertia sets in.
