Bid to cut size of 'over-bloated' House of Lords launched

Warning of the image of an "over-bloated House with too many members in it," he said now was the time for peers to set their own House in order by reducing the numbers.

Lord Cormack, a member of the Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber, suggested peers could rally around a number of principles including the supremacy of the elected Commons and that the Lords should not be bigger in numbers than the Commons.

Peers should not be "too pre-occupied with how to reduce our numbers but concentrate on the fact that we must," with methods examined by a special select committee.

Lord Cormack was opening a debate in which 60 peers are scheduled to speak on the need to explore ways of cutting the size of the Lords.

Labour former minister Lord Cunningham of Felling said the size of the Lords was "our biggest problem and greatest vulnerability".

He told peers: "We should send a clear message to the Government and the people outside that we want to take on this challenge."

Former Commons Speaker Baroness Boothroyd, backing the call for a select committee to examine the issue, hit out at Prime Ministerial powers of patronage to the Lords.

She said ex-Tory leader David Cameron had "inflated the size of this chamber and tarnished our reputation" with 45 new peers announced in his dissolution honours list.

"Without the intervention of the appointments commission the damage might have been even worse," she said.

"We need an appointments commission on a statutory basis with the powers to curb the unrestricted use of patronage Prime Ministers currently enjoy.

"We cannot be easily abolished as Prime Minister Cameron and his deputy Nick Clegg found but Downing Street can swamp us."

Lady Boothroyd, an independent crossbench peer, said the appointments commission should undertake rigorous interview of party nominations to ensure suitability, probity and experience.

"To me it is an affront when a peer says he thought his peerage was a reward for his success as a composer and he didn't expect to attend debates and vote on policy issues.

"Likewise No 10 advisers sent here as lobby fodder who can't speak do us a disservice. The mother of parliaments isn't mute."

Lady Boothroyd added: "The repeated abuse of Prime Ministers' powers of privilege is as plain as a pikestaff. It betrays arrogance, reeks of hypocrisy and has no place in a parliamentary system.

"The abolition of their untrammelled power is long overdue. Be gone I say."

Tory former Cabinet minister Lord Wakeham said the House of Lords was too big but warned against expectations of the Government finding time for real reform until Brexit was out of the way.

Labour's Baroness Taylor of Bolton said there was general agreement that the House was too large and said no government had the right to a majority in the Lords.

She said the Lords shouldn't be larger than the Commons. "There can be solutions if there is the will and the determination."

Liberal Democrat Lord Tyler said a bid to reform the Lords, by introducing a predominantly elected and smaller chamber, had been scuppered during the coalition government by a "squalid party game".

He said the 2012 Bill was still the starting point for a comprehensive and democratic response to calls for reform of the Lords and stressed the need for legislators to be predominantly elected.

Tory former Lords leader Baroness Stowell of Beeston said there was a consensus for some change but warned that for the last 15 years or so the House had become "more political" in its behaviour.

"Too often one side of the House is frustrating the will of the elected government because it can and on the other the Government is so focused on getting its legislative programme through at all costs that it struggles to discern when to stop and listen."

Lady Stowell said: "I fear that if we start down the path of change towards a goal simply marked 'smaller House of Lords' we could compound that problem yet further.

"Fewer of us attending more frequently would diminish our range of expertise and using election results to determine the numbers of this House would encourage us to be even more political.

"It would be hard to tell us apart from the House of Commons. We would have all the vices without the virtues."

Conservative former cabinet minister Lord Tebbit said there had been "a growing problem for some years" over the size of the Lords.

The peer pointed out the time when former prime minister David Cameron had argued the Lords was too big and its membership should broadly reflect votes cast at the most recent election.

"Unhappily he ignored his advice. Indeed in his six years in office he created 245 new members," said Lord Tebbit.

He pointed out Mr Cameron had made no UKIP peers, but had "made a large number of others from parties with very, very little electoral support" in a thinly veiled dig at the Liberal Democrats.

Tory peer Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said of the impact of Brexit: "If nothing else it should alert us to the dangers of ignoring the views of people and living in a bubble where you can pretend that things are different from what they are or indeed pretend as you would like them to be."

The Lords did an "excellent job", he argued but agreed it needed to be reduced in size.

He argued a select committee should bring forward recommendations "so that we are in a position to go into another Parliament with a House that commands the respect that this place deserves for the excellent work which it does".

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Rennard said: "If we are to reduce our size and increase public credibility for the crucial role that we play then the public must have a proper say in the composition of the House."

Former Lords speaker and independent crossbencher Baroness D'Souza backed calls for a select committee to look into the issue and draw up proposals for reform.

She said: "The House of Lords is unnecessarily inflated."

Lady D'Souza said the debate was about "relatively modest, sensible and consensual change to allow this House to be effective and with luck to regain a measure of public respect through choosing to reform itself".

She added: "Both peers and the Prime Minister should now make a commitment to preserving the integrity and effectiveness of Parliament as a matter of public interest and indeed of public duty."

Independent crossbencher Lord Low of Dalston said the number of peers was "spiralling out of control", making the House "dysfunctional".

He said its good work was being obscured by "excessive appointments, cronyism and sleaze".

Tory former minister Viscount Hailsham said there were powerful reasons for reducing the size of the Lords but the idea of a "big bang Bill" going through the Commons at present was "for the birds".

He urged gradual changes with peers nominated for fixed terms and a retirement age of 80.

Former Liberal leader Lord Steel of Aikwood said the appointment of a select committee could lead to quick action and denied that setting an age cut-off of 80 was "ageist".

"If that were to happen at the next election, 221 members of this House would disappear, including me," he said. "I'm able to say it is a good idea."

Labour peer Lord Foulkes of Cumnock said he feared the call to reduce the size of the Lords was "largely a diversion from the real issue of the urgent need for really radical reform".

However, he acknowledged this would not happen very soon and accepted the need for more immediate reform "to modernise the Lords and to make it more publicly acceptable".

He added: "But size is only one of the many changes needed."

He said there is a need to change the "archaic procedures" from the wearing of robes through to the swearing-in ceremony.

"All these things made us look ridiculous and need revision as well," he argued.

Lord Foulkes said there is a need "to stem the tide of new appointments", and the reduction of existing members should be based on participation, arguing for the need to keep "working peers".

He said: "Not those who just covet the title or see it merely as a passport to lucrative outside bodies."

Lord Foulkes claimed the "worst attenders" were the crossbenchers and the bishops.

Independent crossbencher Lord Lisvane said: "We cannot ignore the widespread perception that this institution is losing its claim to be an effective part of this sovereign Parliament.

"That perception is unfair but it is powerful."

He argued the size of the Lords is a "vital preliminary" to ensuring better understanding of its work and so "better valued".

Lord Lisvane added: "If we do nothing, we shall still be wringing our hands and saying something must be done a decade hence.

"The difference may be that the longer the problem goes unsolved the greater the temptation for others to force possibly unwelcome solutions upon us."