‘Ridiculous’ that Starmer has created more peers than he’s removed, says Electoral Reform Society – UK politics live | Politics
Electoral Reform Society says it’s ‘ridiculous’ that Starmer has created more peers than he’s removed
Coming back to the House of Lords, Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers yesterday. (See 8.42am.)
Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it is deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber.
Firstly, it is absurd for the Lords, which at more than 800 peers is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress, to be getting even more members. It is also patently ridiculous that the government has now added more peers into the Lords than the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing.
The ending of the remaining hereditary peers is a step in the right direction, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But [the new peerages] highlight just how unsustainable a wholly unelected and unrestrained chamber is.
Key events
The TSSA transport union has joined the FBU (see 9.49am) in saying parliament should sit at the weekend if necessary to get the employment rights bill onto the statute book. Its general secretary, Maryam Eslamdoust, said:
The Labour government must now treat this an emergency and override the Lords’ attempts to override democracy.
It’s imperative that the bill is delivered in full by Christmas, even if that means the Commons sitting at weekends to ensure it passes.
Electoral Reform Society says it’s ‘ridiculous’ that Starmer has created more peers than he’s removed
Coming back to the House of Lords, Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers yesterday. (See 8.42am.)
Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it is deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber.
Firstly, it is absurd for the Lords, which at more than 800 peers is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress, to be getting even more members. It is also patently ridiculous that the government has now added more peers into the Lords than the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing.
The ending of the remaining hereditary peers is a step in the right direction, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But [the new peerages] highlight just how unsustainable a wholly unelected and unrestrained chamber is.
Former Tory MP Ben Bradley defects to Reform UK, saying his old party ‘failed to deliver’
The former Tory MP Ben Bradley has defected to Reform UK.
Bradley, who lost his Mansfield seat at last year’s general election and who is also a former Nottinghamshire county council leader, has been appointed as Reform’s “head of local government action” to help cut council spending, the party said.
Bradley said:
Successive governments have failed to deliver for so many people, and have demonstrated that they’re unwilling to actually deliver on key promises to voters.
They have talked about being tough on crime, reducing immigration, about helping working people, whilst in practice they’ve failed to act and have delivered the opposite. The trust in those parties has gone, and it’s not coming back.
I’ve been out of politics altogether for a little while, but I feel strongly that I can’t sit on the sidelines any more and watch our country fail.
I’ve come to the conclusion that Reform UK is the only party that is prepared to be different and to tackle the most pressing issues. I’ve been impressed with their recent policy announcements and the clarity they have on a range of issues, and that’s why I’m joining today.
At least 20 other former Tory MPs have defected to Nigel Farage’s party, not including the Reform UK MPs Lee Anderson (who defected in the last parliament from the Tories) and Danny Kruger (who switched three months ago).
In a post on social media, Anderson said that getting Bradley to defect was “a major coup for us as he has left an extremely well paid job to join our team”.
The commentator Sam Freedman has a different take on Bluesky.
Former Tory MP Ben Bradley has now defected to Reform. They really are taking all the worst people from the Boris era.
Treatment hospital waiting list figures rise slightly, NHS England figures show
The waiting list for routine hospital treatment in England has risen slightly, PA Media reports. PA says:
An estimated 7.40 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of October, up from 7.39 million at the end of September, NHS figures show.
The number of patients waiting for treatment is broadly unchanged at 6.24 million.
The list hit a record high in September 2023, with 7.77 million treatments and 6.50 million patients.
Minister to answer Commons urgent question on Trump’s national security strategy
At 10.30am a Cabinet Office minister will respond to an urgent question on Donald Trump’s national security strategy. It has been tabled by Matt Western, the Labour MP who chairs parliament’s joint committee on national security strategy.
MPs should sit if necessary at weekend to get employment rights bill passed before Christmas, union leader says
The Fire Brigades Union is saying Keir Starmer should if necessary force MPs to sit over the weekend to ensure that the employment rights bill will become law before Christmas.
The Commons is due to rise a week today for the Christmas recess, but the employment rights bill cannot become law until the dispute between the elected house and the Lords is resolved. (See 8.42am.) Commenting on the vote in the Lords last night, Steve Wright, the FBU general secretary, said:
For 14 years, the Tories hammered the living standards of working people. They are now using the unelected Lords to continue that policy.
This is a disgraceful attempt to subvert democracy. The employment rights bill was a clear manifesto commitment, and the electorate has backed it.
The Labour government cannot allow the Tories to use their inbuilt majority in the Lords to deny workers protection against unfair dismissal and zero-hour contracts.
There must be no more watering-down of the bill. Keir Starmer must prioritise the urgent delivery of the legislation – and get it passed before the Christmas recess. If that means MPs must sit on a Saturday, as the Commons did during Brexit, then so be it.
Tory MP inadvertently allowed APPG on defence technology to be part funded by Israeli government, standards watchdog says
Neil Shastri-Hurst, a Conservative MP, has been ordered to apologise after an investigation found that he allowed an all-party parliamentary group (APPG) that he chairs to receive funding from a foreign government.
In a report, the Commons standards committee says that Shastri-Hurst failed to carry out proper due diligence checks in his capacity as chair of the APPG for defence technology.
It says:
As the registered contact of the APPG, Dr Shastri-Hurst failed to ensure that adequate due diligence checks were made on RUK Advanced Systems Ltd, which in turn enabled a foreign government, in this case the Government of Israel, to act as an indirect, eventual funder of the secretariat.
APPGs often receive funding from organisations linked to the subject area they cover, and the APPG for defence technology invited groups to contribute either as tier 1 partners, paying £1,499, or tier 2 partners, paying £5,000. In return, partners received either limited or enhanced access to its events.
RUK Advanced Systems Ltd was a tier 1 partner.
Shastri-Hurst referred himself to the parliamentary commissioner for standards after Declassified UK revealed that RUK Advanced Systems Ltd is part of a defence firm owned by the Israeli government.
The committee says Shastri-Hurst should issue a written apology for breaking the rules.
The committee also says the Commons authorities should consider “taking advice from external advisors with professional expertise in due diligence on how best to advise APPGs on conducting due diligence, perhaps by seeking to establish clear principles and a checklist which chairs and registered contacts might use to inform their actions as they undertake this responsibility”.
Next year the committee is going to carry out its own review of the rules governing APPGs to see if they need clarifiying.
Homelessness minister promises to end use of B&Bs as emergency housing
Alison McGovern, the homelessness minister, has pledged to end the use of bed and breakfasts as emergency housing, even as new figures show that the country’s homelessness problem has worsened since Labour came into government. McGovern was speaking to the Guardian to promote the homelessness strategy being announced today. Kiran Stacey and Jessica Murray have the story.
Peers told they risk ‘constitutional crisis’ after surprise vote to continue blocking employment rights bill
Good morning. Yesterday Keir Starmer announced the creation of 25 Labour new peers. About an hour or so later, the government lost an important vote on the employment rights bill – by 24 votes.
The defeat was unexpected, because the government already announced a significant U-turn on the bill, as part a compromise deal negotiated with business and unions intended to ensure the legislation clears the Lords quickly. What is going to happen next is not yet clear.
Here is the PA Media story on the Lords vote.
Flagship workers’ rights reforms face a further holdup as peers inflicted a defeat over a late change linked to the government concession on unfair dismissal that has been branded “a job destroyer”.
The latest setback means a continuation of the parliamentary tussle over the employment rights bill known as “ping-pong”, when legislation is batted between the Commons and Lords until agreement is reached.
In an attempt to end the stand-off, the government recently ditched its election pledge to give employees day-one protection against unfair dismissal and instead accepted a six-month qualifying period for the workplace safeguard, demanded by the upper chamber.
However, alongside this it introduced at the 11th hour a measure to scrap the compensation caps for unfair dismissal, which are currently the lower of 52 weeks’ pay or £118,223.
The government insists this formed part of the compromise agreement reached with business groups and trade unions although this is disputed.
With the clock ticking down to the Christmas recess, peers backed by 244 votes to 220, majority 24, a Tory call to force a review of the existing compensation limits, which ministers are seeking to remove.
The fresh defeat has sparked an angry response from the unions, with unelected members accused of “defying the will of the British public” and told to “move out the way”.
But speaking in the Lords, Tory shadow business minister Lord Sharpe of Epsom said: “The constitutional implications of introducing major new policy at ping-pong are profound.”
He added: “This is not obstruction. It is the bare minimum that a competent administration should undertake.”
Speaking after the vote, Paul Nowak, the general secretary of the TUC, said:
Continuing to vote down the employment rights bill – a clear manifesto commitment – is undemocratic. This bill has been debated and scrutinised for months. Tory Peers are actively defying the will of the British public and their own supporters who overwhelmingly support measures in this bill.
Mike Clancy, general secretary of the Prospect union, went further. He said:
The behaviour of the House of Lords can no longer be seen as constructive scrutiny and increasingly looks like cynical wrecking tactics that risk a constitutional crisis if they continue.
Further delay is in nobody’s interests and only prolongs uncertainty, the bill must pass before Christmas including lifting the caps on compensation.
The Lords vote came as Starmer was also facing criticism over the fact that he has now appointed almost 100 new peers to the Lords, an institution he once suggested he would abolish.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9.30am: NHS England publishes its monthly performance figures.
Morning: Keir Starmer is on a visit in Norfolk promoting government policy on buses.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
2pm: Starmer holds a further video call with ‘coalition of the willing’ leaders, after a call yesterday with Donald Trump involved “pretty strong words”, according to the president.
If you want to contact me, please post a message below the line when comments are open (normally between 10am and 3pm at the moment), or message me on social media. I can’t read all the messages BTL, but if you put “Andrew” in a message aimed at me, I am more likely to see it because I search for posts containing that word.
If you want to flag something up urgently, it is best to use social media. You can reach me on Bluesky at @andrewsparrowgdn.bsky.social. The Guardian has given up posting from its official accounts on X, but individual Guardian journalists are there, I still have my account, and if you message me there at @AndrewSparrow, I will see it and respond if necessary.
I find it very helpful when readers point out mistakes, even minor typos. No error is too small to correct. And I find your questions very interesting too. I can’t promise to reply to them all, but I will try to reply to as many as I can, either BTL or sometimes in the blog.
