Bloated unelected House of Lords must SLASH numbers to below 600, new speaker claims
THE number of members of House of Lords should be slashed to the below 600, the chamber’s new speaker has claimed.
The number of peers should be slashed according to the new Lord Speaker
The unelected arm of parliament has bloated in membership and Lord Fowler said the chamber cannot justify its current size.
He said: “I don’t think that we can justify a situation where you have over 800 peers at the same time as you’re bringing down the Commons to 600 MPs.”
Frankly we’ve been faffing around on this for some time now
Lord Fowler condemned the lack of action since the coalition’s attempt in 2012 to create a partially elected house and said the chamber has “a few passengers”.
The new Lord Speaker added: “Frankly we’ve been faffing around on this for some time now.
“And my fear would be that unless we take the initiative someone else will — like the government — and seek to force something upon us.”
Lord Fowler was appointed in June as the new speaker
Lord Fowler claimed reform of the upper chamber was “hanging over the house like a cloud” but insisted general peers were “hard-working and conscientious”.
The lords have come under serious criticism in recent months after hatching plans to block Theresa May triggering Article 50 following the Brexit vote.
The number of peers is at its highest since 1999
Baroness Wheatcroft said she felt it was "imperative that the House of Lords don't press the button on Article 50” and hoped the unelected part of Parliament could stop Brexit altogether.
The former editor-in-chief of the Wall Street Journal Europe said she hopes the possible delay on Brexit legislation would lead to a second referendum.
She said she did not want the Lords to stand in the way of Brexit at the moment, but said: "If it comes to a Bill, I think the Lords might actually delay things. I think there's a majority in the Lords for remaining".
The Baroness added: “I would hope, while we delayed things that there would be sufficient movement in the EU to justify putting it to the electorate, either through a general election or a second referendum.”
Under David Cameron’s administration 271 new peerages were created, pushing the overall number of Lords to more than 800 for the first time since 1999.