Lords list prompts further calls for reform

Calls for reform of the House of Lords have been stepped up following today's announcement of the latest wave of political appointments to the upper House.

The Elect the Lords campaign warned the 23 new working peers were little more than a "bunch of cronies, donors and losers" and said the current system was "unacceptable".

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Tyler, who presented a bill to reform the upper House last year, urged the government to make today's list "the last in its present form".

Following the loans for peerages row, Labour has failed to give seats in the upper House to any party donors, but six out of the seven new Tory peers have made contributions.

In addition, three new peers – Labour's Keith Bradley and the Lib Dems' John Burnett and Brian Cotter – lost their seats in the House of Commons last year, while Labour's Maggie Jones lost the previously safe seat of Blaenau Gwent to an independent.

"Much has been written about the 'loans for Lordships' row," said Peter Facey, national coordinator of Elect the Lords, a group set up and run by Charter88 and the New Politics Network to campaign for a predominately elected second chamber.

"What has been less well appreciated is how the appointments process means that politicians who have been rejected by the electorate find themselves in the legislature thanks to the patronage of their party leaders.

"This cronyism is unacceptable in a modern democracy…We are not suggesting that Maggie Jones and other failed candidates should be prevented from sitting in the second chamber; all we are saying is that they should have to win an election to it first."

Meanwhile, Lord Tyler insisted the only way to remove the "whiff of corruption" for good was to "disentangle membership of the legislature from the honours systems as quickly as possible".

The government last month began cross-party talks about the future of the House of Lords, and said MPs would get a vote on the issue this year, but Lord Tyler insisted: "There is no need and no time for further extensive inquiries.

"We must bring the curtain down on the longest-running Whitehall farce in the next 12 months, or risk reducing parliament to a new low in public respect," he said.

The Lib Dem peer's second chamber of parliament bill, which he introduced last year, contained proposals for a majority elected House, with polls taking place in nine English regions, and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland comprising three separate areas.

In addition, there would be 99 appointed members, some of them political and some of them chosen by an independent commission on the basis of their skills, experience and possible contribution to the legislative process.