DESPITE vowing to cut the number of members and introduce democracy to the House of Lords David Cameron expanded the unelected house by a third and packed it with more than 100 new Conservative peers.

In his five years in power, and before his resignation honours list, Cameron ennobled 111 Tories, more than double the number of Labour peers appointed, at 54. The Liberal Democrats, in coalition with the Tories, were awarded 50 peerages. In all he created 245 new members of the Lords.

In his controversial last act as Prime Minister, Cameron put forward another 16 for the “other place”, 13 of them Tory, adding more than £400,000 a year to the £21 million already being paid out in allowances and expenses to members. In total his appointments are costing the taxpayer more than £6m a year.

When he was elected and was forced into coalition with the Liberal Democrats, Cameron pledged to reduce Lords’ numbers and to introduce an element of democracy. It wasn’t quite the end of the peer show but, anyway, it was quickly thwarted when around 100 of his parliamentary party rebelled.

So, in the face of what he saw as Lords’ intransigence, seeking to amend and delay legislation, he opted to stuff the chamber and ensure a Tory majority. Previous prime ministers had sought to evenly balance new members, although Tony Blair did break with tradition by creating more than 300 peers, albeit this was over 10 years.

The Lords is now the world’s second largest legislative assembly after the Communist China’s National People’s Congress. At the latest count it had almost 850 members.

Peers are notionally unpaid but they are able to “clock in” and claim £300 a day tax free, plus travel expenses. In the last session of parliament between February 2014 and February 2015 they each received, on average, £25,826. The Lords sat for 126 days in that period.

The latest figures available, for 2013-4, show that the total operating cost of the House of Lords was £93.1m, approximately £118,000 per peer. However, this is likely to be an underestimate as new members are more likely to attend the house more frequently and are younger. The figures also exclude office expenses, including extra staffing, catering and ancillary costs.

Peers can claim the daily allowance simply by turning up at the parliament and vouching that they have been present. They are not required to attend the chamber, vote or speak. Thirty peers did not speak throughout the five years of the parliament, yet claimed £750,000. And in the last parliamentary session £830,418 was claimed by those who failed to speak.

Cameron's departing list nominated 62 former aides, donors and senior Remain campaigners for peerages, knighthoods and other honours. Thirteen of the 16 peerages doled out were to Tories, two were to crossbenchers and one, civil liberties campaigner Shami Chakrabarti, was nominated by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn. This was widely criticised, including by his own deputy Tom Watson.

Two Scottish Tories are to join the Lords, Andrew Fraser, who has donated more than £1m to the party and is its co-treasurer, and Mark McInnes, an Edinburgh councillor who is director of the Scottish Conservatives.

Another Scottish Tory, Ramsey Jones, a former spokesman for leaders David McLetchie and Annabel Goldie – and later a Cameron adviser on Scottish affairs – was awarded a CBE for “political and public service”.

However, the most controversial peerage awarded is to Laura Wyld, the head of Cameron’s appointments, a job which involved helping nominate individuals for honours. She only resigned from the job last week and has been told by the independent peerages committee that she cannot sit in the Lords until next May.

A spokesman for the Electoral Reform Society, which campaigns for an elected second chamber, described the Lords as a “national embarrassment”. He continued: “When he was elected Cameron promised to reform it, instead he has left politics in a very sorry state. He has packed the house with his allies. The new prime minister should grasp the nettle and legislate for an elected assembly in the next parliament.”