By Ned Simons - 10th May 2011
Steps need to be taken to ensure the House of Lords does not become "bloated" and "dysfunctional" should the coalition's plans to radically overhaul the upper chamber fail, MPs have said.
MPs on the political and constitutional reform committee said today that the growth in the membership of the Lords since the election threatened its functioning in the short term.
They point out that 117 new Members of the House of Lords have been announced since May 2010. Of these, 61 were on the recommendation David Cameron and 56 on the recommendation of Gordon Brown.
Graham Allen, the Labour chair of the committee, said: "Whether or not we get radical Lords reform, there are changes here that need to be made now, if Parliament is to function effectively over the next few years."
There are 792 working peers and the MPs cautioned that the "effectively untrammelled" ability of the prime minister to make appointments to the Lords coupled with the lack of any mechanism for peers to resign threatened the House’s effective functioning in the short term.
The report reflects the "general consensus" of a seminar attended by Members of the House of Lords and other experts and is the latest in a series of warnings that overcrowding is damaging the Lords.
A group of peers recently complained that the influx of a large number of new members since the election had led to a “decline in standards of behaviour” in the chamber.
And University College London's Constitution Unit said the prime minister's plan to appoint a further 269 peers was "foolish and unsustainable".
Nick Clegg is due to unveil plans by the end of this month to replace the Lords with an 80 per cent elected House but is expected to face stiff opposition from MPs and peers on all sides.
Yesterday Tory MP Mark Pritchard said Britain’s constitutional settlement should not be offered up to the Lib Dems "as some sort of political sacrificial lamb" as compensation for them losing the AV referendum.
The secretary of the party's influential backbench 1922 committee warned that peers would engage in "guerrilla attacks" against other government legislation as punishment for any attempt to radically reform the Lords.
The deputy prime minister will be questioned on his plans for Lords reform when he appears before the committee on Thursday.
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