Honourable mentions for Messrs Cable, Laws, Alexander, Baker and Hughes who have, according to the Guardian, turned down or said they are not interested in offers of peerages in the dissolution honours:
Four senior Liberal Democrat politicians defeated in the general election, including former business secretary Vince Cable, have turned down offers of a peerage from Nick Clegg in the dissolution honours list. It is understood that David Laws, the former education minister, Simon Hughes, the former justice minister, and former Treasury chief secretary Danny Alexander have also decided to reject a chance to sit in the House of Lords.
The Lords is likely to be a battleground for the government since the Conservatives do not have an overall majority in the upper chamber, even though in practice there are strict limits on how far peers can resist central planks of legislation agreed by the Commons. The Liberal Democrats currently have 101 peers, Labour 214, the Conservatives 178 and crossbenchers 224.
Hughes, a former deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, who lost his Southwark and Bermondsey seat to Labour, told guests at a recent birthday party: “I don’t believe in an unelected second chamber. When you see the list I will not be on it. I am not going there.”
I would hope that in any appointments made in the Dissolution honours, proper regard is given to diversity, especially given that we have an all-male, all white all middle aged Commons party.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings
Follow @LibDemVoice on Twitter
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Kiki Dee: Loving and Free
Off to conference
It has been a uniformed services week for me as Lord Mayor of Liverpool
Temporary Traffic Order - Lower Pleasance
Calling them out
Constructive opposition: a phrase you will hear a lot
April Preston
James Brough
Jennie
Suzanne Fletcher
Nonconformistradical
38 Comments
Some of them may believe they have a good chance of getting back into the HoC in 2020 — or even earlier.
suggest everyone signs here:
http://action.makeseatsmatchvotes.org/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1754&ea.campaign.id=38262&ea.tracking.id=msmv
If there are peerages to be handed out, we should make the best of them. Lords reform is not going anywhere soon, certainly not for the next five years and on current trends, little change for the next fifty.
Since peerages are for life, I would suggest that the younger (and more diverse) the appointees are the better. We should at least try to maximise full value!
I am not sure “I don’t believe in an unelected second chamber” is realistic. I do not believe that elections by FPTP are democratic, but this did not stop me doing what I could in the election campaign. In fact if the Lords only had members who strongly believed in an unelected second chamber, prospects for reform would be even more difficult to realise.
With 8 MPs and 100+ Lords it seems ridiculous that we can appoint any new ones.
So it’s Lord Davey, Lady Featherstone, Lord Huppert?
If it is, expect to hear explosions from Bruce, Campbell, Foster and Beith.
House of Lords is full of old, middle white men – I hope Nick will be brave enough to appoint as many diverse candidates as possible – especially female, LGBT, BME, disabled and under 30’s people. Only way to break up the system.
If you add up both Houses of Parliament we get about 8%, the same as our vote share, so we arent over-represented. Obviously, whether ex MPs go to The Lords is up to them but we should take up all the places we can get.
On the wider point, The Lords is a bit less Democratic than The Commons but only a bit. MPs are chosen by a minority or a majority of their constituents. The PM is then chosen by a bare majority of MPs. The PM then chooses members of The Cabinet & The Lords. We dont see Ministers as not having a Democratic mandate so whats different about The Lords ?
But until the Lords is reformed, this is the system we work with. After the terrible results the party needs to exploit its numerical strength in the Lords so that we are represented by competent and experienced spokesmen in the media. We need to hear Cable et al in Parliament.
“until the Lords is reformed, this is the system we work with”
And so long as people keep saying that, there will never be reform.
Youthfulness in new peer appointees certainly carries the prospect that they may have long and fruitful careers on our benches, but it is instructive to recall that among Jeremy Thorpe’s nominees for peerages Tim Beaumont (Lord Beaumont of Whitley), created a Life Peer in 1967 at the age of 39, eventually left us for the Greens, and that Simon Mackay (Lord Tanlaw), created a Life Peer in 1971 at the age of 37, did not join the Liberal Democrat party on its formation and has I think sat on the cross benches in the House of Lords ever since.
When it comes to diversity, we also need to look at underrepresented social groups.
How many members of the House of Lords have worked in manual jobs?
All issues with the Lords aside, I am glad that the five people named here have turned down the option of entering the Lords. We cannot be seen as a jobs for the old boys party that hands out positions for life to loyal ministers who lose their seats.
Given that we’re stuck with the place for the next five years, we should be looking further afield for any appointments we might be awarded, if any. People could be forgiven for thinking that the Liberal Democrats are a party with opportunity only for older white men. Things seem to have come to that, but we need to challenge that situation. Ethnic minorities, women, younger candidates, and crucially with demographics aside, energetic campaigners who could use the platform in the Lords to further their own existing campaigning activities outside of parliament are needed.
This is VERY good news.Ive NEVER felt the Lords is for defeated MPS to get another bite of the cherry without the need to bother voters for support.It just seems WROng!.I recall John Major plopping Linda Chalker into the lords when she lost her seat.She even carried-on as International Development Secretary.Seemed a squalid,grubby way to USE the upper house,in my view.Im wondering id Cameron with shove defeated MOP,Esther McVey in there?.Id not be surprised.
So how does someone get to be a member of the House Of Lords? I know lots of people who have worked hard to improve the lives of their communities. People who help the disabled, the poor, the marginalised and the sick. People who deserve a chance to have the sort of campaigning platform that a Lord gets. But none of the people I know are ex-MPs. How do wonderful people like the ones I know get into the House Of Lords?
A real shame if Vince has turned down a peerage as we need his expertise in Parliament
lets get back to our raducal roots.We should be campaigning for abolishing the Lords not tinkrering with reform.
What about rewarding some local councillors with strong records and long service. Joe Otten surely deserves consideration for his loaylty to Nick and he would bring some much needed gravitas to the Lords.
The Dissolution List is supposed to be for long-serving former MPs. So don’t expect people who are not that. Just saying. There won’t be too many LDs – we are already over-represented. (The last list of six LDs included five prominent Councillors and ex-Councillors).
Tony Greaves
And WHY WHY WHY does LDV continue to illustrate any piece on the Lords with a misleading picture from the Opening of Parliament instead of the House of Lords at work? No – we do not wear the ermine-trimmed dressing gowns all the time…or hardly ever.
Tony Greaves
You want praise for someone turning down a seat in the Lords?
Your Party has truly lost all grip on reality.
Over 100 UNELECTED Peers with the audacity to claim Liberal values. Will you have the abolition of the Lords in a manifesto – NOT reform – Abolition.
Can anyone justify the acceptance of an unelected house. “…we do not wear ermine trimmed dressing gowns all the time” – What an insulting remark. I’m unelected and vote on issues without a mandate but not too flashy when doing so.
I really don;t think it’s right for people who are defeated at an election to then be made a peer.
@Clootie
Our manifesto is crystal clear. We want a 100% elected House of Lords. We don’t want to abolish it.
Tony Greaves 16th May ’15 – 10:18pm
“No – we do not wear the ermine-trimmed dressing gowns all the time…or hardly ever.”
Tony, this completely destroys my image of you popping out to the chippy in yours on a Saturday evening. Disappointed of Southport.
David Blake 16th May ’15 – 10:54pm
“I really don;t think it’s right for people who are defeated at an election to then be made a peer.”
Quite right David, certainly not while there are people willing to pay good money to buy such influence in government 🙁
The noble Lord Greaves will be able to provide the detail but I believe he was elected by the party and not appointed via the leader’s patronage.
They are just playing at Democracy..
Presumably others of the justifiably electorally unsuccessful MPs will accept the ermine that Clegg, who apparently lacked the integrity to hold his position until the dust has settled seems to belief he is entitled to confer as he uses the last vestiges of power he could not resist when they came his way.
One of the reasons I fist supported the Liberals in the 1970s was because the number one policy (mostly) was electoral reform, specifically some sort of proportional representation yet when it came to it that was NOT demanded, just some flawed referendum on AV that the Conservatives would not support in return for doing some dreadful things with and for the Conservatives.
I am almost sure these “brave” five were not so full of integrity when they chose to vote down amendments, to the then Offender Rehabilitation Bill that would have given Parliament a proper chance to consider in detail the publicly dangerous policy to destabilise the probation services.
That was a policy actively introduced to by parliament by an unelected LD member Lord McNally, that in introducing he himself did not seem to understand, judging by the way he dealt with many questions, and then amazingly this man who seemed not to properly grasp Criminal Justice Policy was shuffled off to lead, of all things, the Youth justice Board !
Meanwhile those LDs who folk here now celebrate for resisting the ermine voted down those amendments, and introduced that Bill which is seriously unjust and flawed in other ways, I have previously written about..
Probation has been destabilised in ways that make dangerous errors more likely than before by requiring every area of England and Wales to have two probation employing agencies, there, by passing cases back & forth, so increasing the administrative communications and diminishing professional continuity, using what were already flawed IT systems, that are increasingly being used in place of human judgement and relationships. By the Lib Dem led proposals about 70% of all probation client dealing workers are no longer required to hold a nationally approved pre entry training qualification.
I could write more, but there is no point, I tried to warn previously but you effectively ignored me. As the system continues to break down, LD members who did not demand more of their MPs are personally responsible.
Scroll through a few posts and comments on this blog.
http://probationmatters.blogspot.co.uk/
When You have done that try this one also LDs treatment of prisons in Governement is part of the CJS problems: –
https://www.facebook.com/Knowthedangeruk?fref=ts
Much of my submissions to this message board have bean rejected – if my last words are rejected please email them to me as I did not retain a copy – that is a test of the inherent common decency which I first saw in the Liberals in the 1970s, but does it remain?
I prefer that you publish my words so that some who presumably now realise what monstrous things those you supported, were able to do in office, as well as the good stuff, can consider that tampering with CJs is never a good idea, it needs to develop from experience with small trials of advances, such as are ported in today’s Observer, where I have commented, under the pseudonym Tolkny.
http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/may/17/parents-drugs-judge-children#comment-52304550
I’m female, LGBT, Northern, have worked in manual labour yet also have law degree…
I’m not holding my breath for the phone call.
Looks like our Parliamentary team, with over 100 Peers, will have roughly 8% MPs and bearing in mind that we polled 8% at the General election in Scotland. It’s about as close to PR as we are likely to get in the near future. No mention about all the former Scottish MPs looking for a seat in the Lords.
Louis is right. It’s time to call a halt to this nonsense and to put any energy into reform of the second chamber.
“It’s about as close to PR as we are likely to get in the near future. ”
Can you imagine the number of UKIP peers under PR?
No, a chance similarity between number of peers and the overall result for one party does not make anything “close to PR.” The HoL does not exist to represent the people and the peers are not responsible to the people at large or any particular group of them. I thought we were supposed to be, among other things, democrats.
Andrew S Hatton 17th May ’15 – 7:50am
“Much of my submissions to this message board have bean rejected”
Andrew, our system keeps records of such things since we started the site in 2006. I cannot find evidence of us ever rejecting a comment from you.
Best wishes
Paul, Moderation team
I hope a party leadership asked about appointing new peers, asks first if the candidate could do the job of being a working peer – a former MP like those mentioned or an experienced councillor would obviously qualify. The second question is whether they want to do the job – that is a more personal issue for the candidate and involves what they see as their immediate or long-term future and other commitments. Becoming a peer could rule out other possibilities – like returning to the Commons; I don’t know how it affects membership of the European Parliament. I do know you can’t be an active peer and an MEP.
Vince and Simon might be considering candidacy of some form in the 2016 GLA elections.
And what happened to the LibDem elected interim peer panel? If we think Lords reform has been kicked into the long grass for 5 years, shouldn’t we be reviving it?
I definitely don’t go along with the ‘we don’t agree with an unelected House of Lords so we won’t play’ argument. That smacks too much of abstentionism, which messed up political life in Northern Ireland for much of the 20th century.
If we can get our hands on the levers of power to advance our party’s political objectives, we must take the opportunity.
The House of Lords badly needs to reform but we have to work with the system as it is. So, although I do applaud those in the party who, on principle, do not wish to be a part of it. I also feel very strongly that if our views are to be heard then the pragmatist in me says , we have a voice in the upper house let us use it!
While I like many others am totally against the absence of a democratic mandate for the House of Lords and applaud the decision taken by my own former MP Simon Hughes, I find it ironic that we may need the ermine -clad brigade a lot in the coming years. For a start it might well be that the H.O.L. saves the Human Rights Act. Stick around folks.
I think it is a shame if candidates who want to rip up the Lords and start again didn’t take the opotunity to pursue that aim from within. However there are plenty of examples of people going native so I can see why some would not want to risk it.
David-1 My comments on PR were simply meant to show that we are in no way going to move towards PR in the near or distant future.
Sadly our party now has a record as bad as any of the other parties for for giving those who give large sums of money to the party a peerage. While Simon may have turned down a peerage, one was given to the night club owner who “generously” funded his campaigns.
This then answers Ed shepherd’s question, “How do people get into the Lords”. The answer for many is to write out a large cheque to any party and if the cheque is large enough and in the post – the honour will be in the return post.
Can I have one please. I’ve just retired after being a councillor for 28 years ….. only joking …. not!