2.2.1 – The structure and role of the House of Lords
The Government announced on Wednesday 10 December that 31 new political Peers were to be created. Of those listed, 25 would sit on the Labour benches, three with the Conservatives, and three with the Lib Dems.
In addition to the new peerages created, three excepted hereditary Peers have also had life peerages conferred on them, which will allow them to remain in the Lords once the Government’s Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill becomes law.
The bill has been passed by both Houses, although is currently going through the ‘ping pong’ stage, whereby the two Houses attempt to reconcile their differences on the precise wording of the draft law.
The House of Lords is unusual for a legislative chamber in that it has no fixed number of seats, and has risen to over 800 members in recent years. Whilst all parties tend to agree that there are too many members, Labour are keen to introduce more Peers on the government benches to help them push through their legislative agenda. In defending their decision to create so many new Peers, a Labour spokesperson said, “The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off.”
It is not uncommon for new governments to seek to inject new blood into the Upper House. This provides them with a potential source of (mostly junior) ministers in the Lords, but also ensures they have sufficient active (or ‘working’) Peers to support their legislative programme. Unlike MPs, many Peers are not regular attendees, which can make predicting the outcome of divisions more difficult, especially as no party is anywhere close to having an overall majority or even a working majority.