(Bloomberg) -- The U.K. House of Lords should cut its membership by a quarter to streamline its “excessive size,” a panel of lawmakers in the unelected upper chamber said.
The number isn't currently capped and there should be a “two-out, one-in” program over the next 15 years, the cross-party panel said in a report on Tuesday. New peers would be appointed to 15-year terms, with the composition of appointees in each parliamentary term reflecting the results of the most recent general election.
“The committee has proposed a radical yet achievable solution to the excessive size of the House of Lords, which the house itself agreed needed to be tackled urgently,” said Terence Burns, the peer who chaired the committee. The proposals would allow the membership “to be refreshed and to reflect changing public opinion.”
The proposals are the latest attempt to scale down the U.K.'s bloated upper chamber, second only in size to China's National People's Congress. Public support for reforming the Lords has risen to 63 percent from 48 percent in 2015, according to BMG Research for the Electoral Reform Society published on Tuesday.
Tory Rebellion
Any reforms to the Lords will have to be approved by the chamber itself, Prime Minister Theresa May and the leaders of the country's other political parties, according to the panel. Under Tuesday's proposals, each party would play an equal share in the reductions, but new appointments would reflect the most recent electoral results.
The last attempt to reform the chamber foundered in a vote in the House of Commons in 2012 after Conservatives rebelled against an attempt by their coalition partners, the Liberal Democrats, to introduce elections to the Lords.
Until 1999, the chamber was made up of members of Britain's hereditary nobility, political appointees, senior judges, and bishops in the Church of England. The then prime minister, Tony Blair, passed legislation cutting the number of hereditary peers to 92, eliminating more than 600 members of the chamber. That was intended as an interim compromise on the path to phasing out hereditary peers altogether, but after 18 years, there has been no further progress.
The changes, to be made without legislation, would see numbers cut from about 800 currently to 751 in 2022; 626 in 2027; and 600 in 2032. The panel said they want a debate on the issue before Christmas, with “more detailed consideration of specific measures” next year.
At present, there are 799 members of the House of Lords, according to Parliament's website. That includes 252 members of May's Conservatives, 199 from Labour, 100 Liberal Democrats and 24 bishops. Minor parties, non-affiliated members and so-called Crossbench peers make up the remainder.
To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at amorales2@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Flavia Krause-Jackson at fjackson@bloomberg.net, Thomas Penny, Andrew Atkinson
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