What do Boris Johnson’s brother, a historian who has written favourably about him, and a defeated MP who gave him a free holiday all have in common? All of them now grace the prestigious red benches of the House of Lords, along with 27 donors to the Conservative party. And that’s before we get to the newspaper baron and son of a Russian former KGB agent who invited him to weekend parties in Umbria, and the nomination of a virtually unknown No 10 aide thought to be in her 20s. During his tumultuous three years in office, Johnson ennobled 86 people, taking the Conservative bloc in the upper chamber to 274 peers.
Previous prime ministers have made liberal use of their unrestrained powers of patronage, but Johnson took it to another level and is still seeking the appointment of more through his “resignation” honours list. Coupled with the Michelle Mone scandal, and a string of lobbying furores, Labour has clocked that the public mood is ripe for radical reform and even abolition. Sensing danger, some peers have themselves started making the case for some reform – with varying degrees of radicalism. Few of them go so far as to support Labour’s proposals for getting rid of the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected chamber. But there is little doubt that many of the more self-aware occupants of the second chamber realise something must be done to stop prime ministers being able to pack their numbers with cronies and donors, with many of the most controversial appointments made at the moment they are leaving office. Supporters of the House of Lords often wheel out the argument that it is a chamber of all the talents, with a breadth and depth of expertise far beyond the Commons. This is one of the key rebuttals to Keir Starmer’s backing for a move to an elected system. But the Tory group in the Lords, as with the other parties, is heavily dominated by those with political connections. This includes almost 100 Conservative ex-MPs, booted into what many speak of as a “retirement home” where they are guaranteed a £300-plus daily allowance for turning up, and 34 former special advisers and ex-party officials. More than half are politically connected people, about two in 10 are hereditary peers and the remaining tranche are from other walks of life – heavily skewed towards financiers and thinktanks. Certainly, there are the 184 crossbenchers, many proposed by the House of Lords appointments commission, but they make up less than a quarter of the House of Lords. Then there are the 25 bishops – despite England and Wales being no longer majority Christian nations. One Conservative peer, Lord Norton of Louth, a constitutional expert, has put forward a bill to strengthen the role of the appointments commission – which was given the green light by peers to pass its first legislative hurdle in November. This would put the independent body on a statutory footing, ensure advice is given before the prime minister asks King Charles to approve peerages, and ask for recommendations to be assessed on the grounds of merit – not just vetting for propriety. However, it stops short of genuine, deep reform, such as giving the appointments commission any concrete powers of veto over unsuitable names. Johnson’s resignation honours list, due in the coming weeks, brings the potential for a further public backlash against the House of Lords. Any attempt by Liz Truss to put forward her own names for a resignation list after the shortest tenure as prime minister in history would also no doubt provoke similar concern. And with Labour looking seriously at abolishing the Lords entirely, Rishi Sunak will have a choice on his hands about whether to find a way of blocking one or both of his predecessors’ lists – or find himself fuelling his opposition’s arguments that the “indefensible” second chamber has lost legitimacy entirely.