This afternoon Downing Street announced the appointment of 55 new Peers, which when added to the three new Peers appointed by David Cameron as Government Ministers, makes a total of 58.  When they all take their seats (plus the two newly “elected” hereditary Peers), there will be 767 members of the House of Lords.

The announcement today is in fact an amalgam of three lists:

• a list of “working” Peers, nominated by the political parties, that has been working its way through the system for some time.  This comprises sixteen Labour; ten Conservatives (including one of the new Ministers); and six Liberal Democrats.  This list was completed well before the General Election and should have emerged months ago.
• a list of ex-MPs who were not standing in the General Election – the “dissolution” list, which traditionally appoints former senior Ministers and leading Parliamentarians to the Lords.  This comprises thirteen Labour; six Conservatives; three Liberal Democrats (one of whom – Richard Allan – retired five years ago and now works for Facebook); and one Democratic Unionist (Ian Paisley).
• one individual appointed as a Cross-bencher in recognition of having held a significant post in public life (Ian Blair).

I am told that the out-going Prime Minister had been sitting on the list of “working” peers for some time, along with the nomination of Sir Ian Blair, who was sacked by Mayor Boris Johnson/resigned the Metropolitan Police Commissionership to pursue other opportunities in October 2009.

Still to come is the normal “resignation” list of nominees by the outgoing Prime Minister (Tony Blair’s list is also still outstanding) and a list of peerages for any senior ex-Ministers or Parliamentarians defeated in the General Election.

This, of course, also excludes the “gerrymander” list of 100-200 new Peers that the Coalition has promised itself to avoid any risk of being voted down in the House of Lords.

Despite the extra Peers announced today, the Coalition’s case for bolstering its position remains extremely weak.

When the new Peers are in place the make-up of the House will be:

• 204 Conservatives
• 239 Labour
• 80 Liberal Democrat
• 218 Cross-bench and others
• 26 Archbishops and Bishops.

The coalition will have 284 members of the House out of a total of 767.  This is 37% of the House and is in practice a working majority as the Crossbenchers and the Bishops do not vote in a bloc (usually splitting on either side of the argument) and in practice they do not attend and vote as frequently as the Party representatives.

The outgoing Labour Government never had more than 30% of the membership of the House and was virtually always defeated if the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats voted together.

And the accepted principle had been that the Government of the day should not have a working majority in the House of Lords.

There is, of course, another reason why there should be no more Peers appointed for a while after the announcement today.  The House is now bursting at the seams.  In the Chamber it is frequently now standing room only and the Liberal Democrats have encroached onto the Bishops’ benches (encircling any Bishop present).  A note has gone round to many Peers telling them that they can’t have both a desk and a locker.  And it won’t be long before Peers have to share coathooks.

A constitutional outrage by trying to gerrymander the second Chamber is one thing; sharing coathooks is quite a different kettle of fish.

It was rather like watching a train crash in slow motion – fascinating but nauseating at the same time.  It fell to Lord De Mauley, Old Etonian, “elected” hereditary peer and Government Whip, to repeat the statement in the Lords given in the Commons by David Laws MP, Chief Secretary to the Treasury, on the spending cuts announced on Monday.  He responded to this challenge by reading the statement exceedingly slowly and in a monotone.

He was followed by Lord John Eatwell, a serious economist and President of Queens College, Cambridge, making a welcome return to the Labour frontbench, who was in devastating form:

“My Lords, I am most grateful to the noble Lord, Lord De Mauley, for repeating the Answer given by his right honourable friend in another place. I congratulate him on his new responsibilities, and express the hope that he will display the same forensic ability in economic affairs displayed by the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, in the previous Parliament.

It is an axiom of sound financial management that actions have consequences. What is striking about the Statement made by Mr Laws is that the consequences of the expenditure cuts are not spelt out at all. Instead we are presented with £6 billion-plus of cuts in government expenditure, but not told what the true consequences will be. Of course I can understand the sheer delight with which the Chancellor imposed swingeing cuts on the Department for Business—or should it now be called the department for closure? That will teach Vince Cable to declare earlier this year that,

“cutting spending further … would be extremely dangerous”.

Try a cut of £836 million on for size, Vince!

The rationale for the cuts is declared to be,

“to start tackling the UK deficit and secure the recovery”.

The Chief Secretary cites the United States as following a similar policy. That is arrant nonsense. On the very day that Vince Cable suffered the unkindest cut of all, President Obama announced a £30 billion new initiative to support small businesses. Has the noble Lord read the speech of Professor Christina Romer, chair of President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers, delivered at the William and Mary College last week? Professor Romer said:

“I worry that policymakers may take the return of growth as license to withdraw the support that has been essential to the recovery. That is exactly what happened in 1936 and 1937. President Roosevelt, Congress and the Federal Reserve switched to fiscal and monetary contraction before the recovery from the Great Depression was complete. The result was a second recession in 1938 that pushed unemployment back up to 18 percent and delayed the return to normal for another three years”.

That is the potential cost of this Government’s deficit hysteria.

So will the noble Lord tell us, first, what is the Treasury’s estimate of the increase in unemployment directly attributable to these spending cuts? Secondly, what is the Treasury’s estimate of the number of business failures that will be directly attributable to these spending cuts?

The Government claim continuously to be protecting front-line services—a laudable objective. To enable your Lordships’ House to assess the Government’s achievement, will the noble Lord give the House a precise definition of what is a front-line service? A precise definition would enable your Lordships to assess whether the £1.7 billion of the contracts and projects delayed or stopped are front line. Can the noble Lord tell us exactly what the contracts and projects to be stopped might be? Can he also tell us exactly what are the £1.7 billion of local authority services that are no longer to be ring-fenced? Are they front line? Is the removal of funding to underwrite children’s futures in the children’s trust fund front line—they look jolly front line to me.

The Government have presented a policy without consequences, because they are unwilling to spell out the true consequences. It is a pretty poor start to open, transparent government. What is transparent is the evident relish with which Mr Laws wields the budgetary axe. He revels in the policy of shock and awe. Mr Laws is the Donald Rumsfeld of economic policy, and we can expect his activities to achieve equally constructive consequences. Lloyd George would be ashamed of him.”

Answers came there none.

As other Peers asked further questions, the responses became even more abbreviated and Lord De Mauley looked more and more discomfited.

And as the minutes wore on the Tory Leader of the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, stared fixedly at the clock – as though willing the minutes to pass so that the time limit for questions would be over and Lord De Mauley’s would be ended.

There is a tradition that when the House of Lords meets – by and large without fancy dress -  on the afternoon of the day of the Queen’s Speech two loyal Government backbenchers are chosen to propose “an humble address” thanking the Queen for taking the time to open the new session of Parliament.

This afternoon – in the spirit of the new coalition – two loyal – allegedly loyal – backbenchers from the Government benches – one Conservative and one Liberal Democrat duly made their speeches thanking the Sovereign.  The new proprieties were followed: they referred to each other as “My Noble Friend”.  However, the implicit stresses and strains in the new relationship were visible for all to see.

The Conservative speaker was the very grand Earl Ferrers, a member of the House for over 55 years.  There has been a Ferrers sitting in the House of Lords for hundreds of years and his ancestor the fourth Earl has the distinction of being the last member of the House to have been hung for murder- in 1760.  The present Earl (the thirteenth) is an individual not known for his liking of other political parties.  This is what he said about the Liberal Democrats:

“They received fewer seats than they expected, but I congratulate them on holding office for the first time in 65 years. That is quite an achievement whichever way you look at it. They have been at the forefront of all political jokes, especially from my party, most of which we thought were wholly justified. But not no more! We are chained together like suffragettes. When the late Lord Pethick-Lawrence, whom I remember sitting at the end of the Bench opposite, was in another place and his wife was a formidable suffragette, he made the wonderful observation that he would give £100 to a charity for every day that his wife remained chained to the railings of the House of Commons.”

Earl Ferrers has a reputation as a traditionalist.  And he did not hide his distaste for some of the constitutional change promised in the forthcoming session, saying:

“A fixed-term Parliament: that is a new idea.”

“New” is not a word of praise in his lexicon.  And he went on:

“There was a lot of talk about the Government wanting an Opposition majority of 55 per cent in another place before the Government are unseated. Your Lordships will have your own views as to whether that is wise or not. I shall content myself with saying that when the Labour Government were defeated in 1979 on a Motion of no confidence, I was watching in the Gallery. There was a sombre feeling in another place because everyone thought that the Motion was lost. Then, one of the Whips—Anthony Berry I think it was—rushed in holding up one finger. The roar was tremendous. Everyone knew that the Government had lost by one. Everyone understood that. Now, one would have to work out 55 per cent of 423—[Laughter]—and come in holding up three and a half fingers.”

And as for House of Lords reform:

“A second House which is wholly or partially elected is in the gracious Speech. One does not have to be a genius to realise from which end of the suffragette’s chain that idea came. I have always had the respectful temerity to advise your Lordships not to cheer too much at the removal of the hereditary Peers because the life Peers would be next.  ….  I can never understand why we always have to use up energy and parliamentary time in changing things which are working well—time which could be better addressed to the subjects which are not working well. I think that I had better not pursue that line too far, because it might be regarded as controversial, which of course it is not.”

Now Earl Ferrers is the President of the Association of Conservative Peers.  His loyalty to the Conservative Party is unimpeachable, but if that is his view of the Coalition and its constitutional proposals, it doesn’t sound as if the Government is going to have an easy time.

The full Government list has now been published and I note that no fewer than ten Ministers are not drawing a salary.  I think this must be a record.

Presumably, some Ministers are sufficiently wealthy that they regard the Ministerial stipends on offer as just not worth bothering about – although there are clearly  others who despite being very well off have decided to take the money.

It would be interesting to know whether any of those declining a salary have been given any exemptions from the usual rules about holding other external appointments whilst serving as a Minister.

For the record the unpaid ten are:

• Lord Howell of Guildford – Foreign Office
• Lord Freud – Department of Work and Pensions
• Lord Marland – Department of Energy and Climate Change
• Baroness Warsi – Minister without Portfolio
• David Heath MP – Deputy Leader of the House of Commons*
• Brooks Newmark MP – Whip
• Philip Dunne MP – Whip
• Baroness Northover – Whip*
• Lord Taylor of Holbeach – Whip
• Lord Wallace of Saltaire – Whip*

The three marked with an * are LibDems.

Before MPs can be sworn in, they first have to elect a Speaker and then the appointment of the Speaker has to be approved by the Queen.  This requires some considerable amount of ritual and the wearing of robes by five senior members of the House of Lords who act as Lords Commissioner on behalf of Her Majesty.

The Speaker was elected yesterday, but the Approbation took place this afternoon.  You can watch it here – the best bits are 9 minutes in.  But don’t miss the earlier stress on the word “immediate” when the decaration is made:

“Let the Commons know that the Lords Commissioners desire their immediate attendance in this House.”

And while the Lord Strathclyde, the new Leader of the House, just about manages to keep a straight face while he intones that Her Majesty is “fully sensible” of John Bercow’s “zeal in the public service” and his “ample sufficiency to exercise the arduous duties”, sitting next to him Lord McNally, his coalition partner and Leader of the LibDems fails to contain himself, especially when John Bercow is assured that Her Majesty “will ever place the most favourable construction” upon his words and actions.

The full ritual was as follows:

3.00 pm

Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of Lichfield.

Speaker of the House of Commons

The Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde): My Lords, I beg to acquaint the House that a Commission has been issued under Her Majesty’s Great Seal to several Lords therein named authorising the said Lords to declare in the name and on behalf of Her Majesty Her Majesty’s Approbation of the choice of the Commons of Mr John Bercow to be their Speaker.

Then, the Lords Commissioners (the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster (Lord Strathclyde), the Lord Speaker (Baroness Hayman), Lord McNally, Baroness Royall of Blaisdon and Baroness D’Souza) being robed and seated in front of the Throne, the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster directed Black Rod as follows:

Lord Strathclyde: Let the Commons know that the Lords Commissioners desire their immediate attendance in this House.

Then, the Commons being at the Bar, Mr Speaker-Elect (Mr John Bercow), addressing the Royal Commissioners, said:

Mr Speaker-Elect (Mr John Bercow): My Lords, I have to acquaint your Lordships that, in obedience to the Royal Command, Her Majesty’s faithful Commons have, in the exercise of their undoubted rights and privileges, proceeded to the election of a Speaker, and that their choice has fallen upon myself. I therefore present myself to your Lordships’ Bar and submit myself with all humility to Her Majesty’s gracious Approbation.

Lord Strathclyde: Mr John Bercow, we are commanded to assure you that Her Majesty is so fully sensible of your zeal in the public service, and of your ample sufficiency to execute the arduous duties which her faithful Commons have selected you to discharge, that Her Majesty does most readily approve and confirm you as their Speaker.

Mr Speaker: My Lords, I submit myself with all humility and gratitude to Her Majesty’s gracious Commands. It is now my duty, in the name of and on behalf of the Commons of the United Kingdom, to lay claim, by humble petition to Her Majesty, to all their ancient and undoubted rights and privileges, especially to freedom of speech in debate, to freedom from arrest, and to free access to Her Majesty whenever occasion shall arise, and that the most favourable construction shall be put upon all their proceedings. With regard to myself, I pray that, if in the discharge of my duties I shall inadvertently fall into any error, it may be imputed to myself alone, and not to Her Majesty’s most faithful Commons.

Lord Strathclyde: Mr Speaker, we have it further in Command to inform you that Her Majesty does most readily confirm all the rights and privileges which have ever been granted to or conferred upon the Commons by Her Majesty or any of her Royal predecessors. With respect to yourself, Sir, though Her Majesty is sensible that you stand in no need of such assurance, Her Majesty will ever place the most favourable construction upon your words and actions.

Mr Speaker and the Commons then retired.

One of the casualties of the “wash-up” period just before the dissolution of the last Parliament was that part of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Bill that would have ended by-elections to replace hereditary peers who had seats in the House of Lords and who die.

Apparently, members of what is now the new Coalition felt that these proposals were too controversial to be allowed to go through, despite having been supported by the House of Commons.

So the first by-elections of the new Parliament will take place in the House of Lords next month.

The deaths of the Earl of Northesk on 28 March 2010, and of Viscount Colville of Culross on 8 April 2010, have created two vacancies among the 90 hereditary peers who sit in the House of Lords under the terms of section 2 of the House of Lords Act 1999.

Under House of Lords Standing Order 10 these vacancies are to be filled by means of two by-elections, in which those eligible to stand are all those hereditary peers whose names are listed in the ‘Register of hereditary peers who wish to stand for election as members of the House of Lords’.

The Earl of Northesk was one of 42 hereditary peers elected by the Conservative hereditary peers, and Viscount Colville of Culross was one of 28 hereditary peers elected by the Crossbench hereditary peers, so hereditary peers on the Register are being asked to declare whether they wish to stand as a candidate in the Conservative by-election, the Crossbench by-election, or both.

Just let me repeat that:

“hereditary peers on the Register are being asked to declare whether they wish to stand as a candidate in the Conservative by-election, the Crossbench by-election, or both.“

In each by-election, the voters will be the hereditary peers who sit in the House as members of that party/group: when hereditary peers elected to serve as Deputy Speakers or in other offices are included, this means that there are 47 Conservative electors and 29 Crossbench electors.

Again for emphasis:

“47 Conservative electors and 29 Crossbench electors.“

The two by-elections will be conducted simultaneously: lists of candidates will be available on Tuesday 1 June, and the results will be announced on Wednesday 23 June.

Isn’t democracy a wonderful thing!

The LibCon coalition government is in danger of getting a reputation for trying to gerry-mander Parliament.

First, it pledges to protect itself from being thrown out of office by proposing the 55% rule, which would overturn the centuries-old process whereby a Government defeated (by one vote not 65 votes) in the House of Commons had to resign.

Now, we are learning more about the proposal to pack the House of Lords with coalition supporters.  Last week, I reported that the coalition agreement between the Tories and the LibDems talks about the House of Lords in the following terms:

“In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.”

And speculated:

“So this sounds – in the short-term – like a proposal to create 96 new Liberal Democrat peers and 77 new Tory peers (assuming no Labour ex-MPs are appointed to the House and the Crossbench numbers remain the same) so as to reflect the votes secured in the election.”

The Times confirmed this yesterday and speculated that the first wave of appointments would be soon and listed possible nominees. 

The LibDems are in an ecstasy of excitement about the possible preferment on offer.  Apparently, they have already had “an election” to choose their nominees and LibDem Voice has the top thirty lucky winners – headed by my old friend, controversial Brian Paddick, the former Deputy Assistant Commissioner of the Metropoltian Police and LibDem Mayoral candidate for London.  However, (and this could only be the LibDems) the validity of this election has already been called into question and other LibDems are describing the names as “odious”.

However, this triumphalist bickering misses the point.

The new coalition already commands 37% of the seats in the House of Lords.  This is in practice a working majority, as the non-political Crossbenchers who comprise nearly 30% of the House do not vote as a bloc and turn out less frequently.

The previous Government never had more than 30% of the seats in the Upper House and was regularly defeated by a combination of Conservative and LibDem peers. 

It had previously been agreed that following the departure of most of the Hereditary Peers, there should be approximate parity between the two main Parties in the Lords (and, in practice, it took nearly ten years after the election of 1997 for Labour to have the same number of Lords members as the Conservatives) .  This was to avoid a situation in which the Government of the day would ever have an automatic majority. 

This convention is apparently now to be set aside.

While the House of Lords exists in its present form, its raison d’etre has been its ability from time to time to challenge the Government and make the House of Commons think again about the details of legislation – in a recent session approving 3,000 amendments to Government Bills.

This rigour is too much for the new Coalition – so their response is to pack the House of Lords with their own supporters.

Most people would call that gerry-mandering.

I couldn’t possibly comment.

A few days I commented on the seating arrangements in the Lords Chamber and the need for some changes now that there were two parties of Government.

A new seating plan is now being circulated.

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And the LibDems have been swapped over to the Government side of the House with a compensatory move by some of the Cross-benchers.

But why are they not going to mix more extensively with their new Coalition colleagues?

The only test will be whether Members remember to sit in their new places tomorrow, when the House meets for the first time.

Mayor Boris Johnson has described the new arrangement between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats as the “Mongrel Coalition”.

In the House of Lords there are still 91 hereditary peers sitting and voting on legislation.  (Of these, 47 take the Conservative Whip and make up more than a quarter of the Tory peers.)  I rather suspect they regard themselves as thoroughbreds and take a dim view of mongrels.

More significantly, one of the consequences of the new arrangement is that there will now be 258 members of the House of Lords taking the Government Whip (186 Conservatives and 72 Liberal Democrats).  This is 37% of the House and compares with the 211 Labour peers (30%% of the House) who supported the previous Government prior to the dissolution.  The full arithmetic is here.

This will make it substantially easier for the new Government to get its legislation through the House.

(It will also require a change to the seating arrangements.  At present, the Government occupy two blocks of seats on the right of the Throne with the third block being occupied by the Crossbenchers (who also have a block of seats facing the Throne).  The main opposition party then occupies two blocks of seats to the left of the Throne with the third block on the left being occupied by the Liberal Democrats.  The Conservatives will presumably now occupy the two blocks of seats on the right of the Throne.  Will the LibDems now swap their block of seats with the Crossbenchers, so that both coalition parties will sit next to each other on the right of the Throne?  And even more radically, will LibDem and Tory peers inter-mingle on the three blocks of seats on the right of the Throne? Or is that taking mongrelism and coalitionism a step too far for the House of Lords?  If you really want to follow this, see page 3 here.)

And what of the future?

The coalition agreement (sic) says:

“We agree to establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation.  The committee will come forward with a draft motions by December 2010. It is likely that this bill will advocate single long terms of office. It is also likely there will be a grandfathering system for current Peers. In the interim, Lords appointments will be made with the objective of creating a second chamber reflective of the share of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.”

So this sounds – in the short-term – like a proposal to create 96 new Liberal Democrat peers and 77 new Tory peers (assuming no Labour ex-MPs are appointed to the House and the Crossbench numbers remain the same) so as to reflect the votes secured in the election.

No wonder the House authorities are so busy measuring the desk-space in each office and counting the lockers ….

And before you ask I don’t know what “a grandfathering system for current peers” is either.

Members of the House of Lords are like convicted prisoners and people detained under the Mental Health Act – we don’t have a vote in UK Parliamentary elections.  I am tempted to believe that when the franchise was framed those drafting the legislation equated the inside of the House of Lords with a penal establishment or a lunatic asylum.  However, I expect the real reason is that as we are already Members of Parliament we do not need further representation in the House of Commons.

We do, however, get a vote in elections for the European Parliament and for local elections.

So this morning I was able to play my part in the democratic process.  It also set a test for Haringey’s electoral administrators as to whether I would be issued with the right ballot paper – a test I am pleased to say they passed without me having to prompt them!

I cast my three votes, of course, for the three Labour Council candidates – all of whom will make excellent councillors if elected.

Two notable features.

First, the polling station was busy.  The presiding officer, who has been presiding there for as long as I can remember, said it was the heaviest morning voting that she could recall and that there had been people waiting outside to vote at 6.50am.  So, it looks as if there is going to be a high turnout.

Second, there was a complete absence of the Tory Party.  There were tellers outside the polling station from Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens, but no Conservatives – even though this was a constituency that was continuously Conservative up until 1992.