Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:46 pm on 9 January 2023.
My Lords, perhaps the Government will keep the following under review. I ask the Minister to confirm that there are now 89 more Tory Peers in this House than there are from the Official Labour Opposition. That is by far and away the biggest majority over the Official Opposition since the House of Lords Act 1999. Can she further do the maths, as I can and point out that, in the event of a future Labour Government, we would need to appoint 178 new Labour Peers to get the same majority as the Tories have now? I quite like the sound of that, actually. Will she further confirm that, even if we take the House as a whole into consideration, including Cross-Benchers, the Bishops and the non-affiliated, the Tories have 33% of the whole House, which again is far and away the largest majority since the 1999 reform Act? Do these figures not demonstrate conclusively that, over a period now of 13 years, successive Tory Governments have routinely abused the whole appointments system?