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Undemocratic House of Lords Gets More Appointees Under Johnson
Local MP Richard Thomson has strongly criticised the House of Lords after it was revealed that Prime Minister Boris Johnson has so far appointed more new peers less than two and a half years into his premiership than did Theresa May and Gordon Brown combined.
Despite serving as Prime Minister for less than half the time of both Theresa May and Gordon Brown combined, Boris Johnson has already created more life peers (81) than both former Prime Ministers put together (77).
Of the 81 ennobled by Boris Johnson 30 are former MPs who either lost their seats or retired
Meanwhile 68 per cent of Boris Johnson’s peers are male with only 32 per cent being female, further embedding the imbalance of the UK Parliament.
Commenting on the research, Richard Thomson MP said:
“If we are truly a democratic society, then democracy demands that people can elect their legislators. None of us will ever get the chance to elect members of the House of Lords. They are appointed for life and we have no opportunity to remove them from office.
“The House of Lords is a fundamental part of the British parliament by which we are ruled in Scotland. There are over 800 members of the upper house. That means a clear majority of members of the Westminster parliament are not elected, or accountable to anyone. I believe that only the People’s Republic of China has a higher number of unelected Parliamentarians. That should be a source of shame and it undermines the UK when it talks about abuses of governments in other parts of the world.
“The idea of an unelected legislature in the 21st Century is ridiculous enough, but for successive Prime Ministers to continue to pile the Lords’ chamber full of chummy political appointments is inexcusable. The argument to consign this archaic and undemocratic chamber to the dustbin of history is long overdue.
“The SNP will continue to press the UK Government to abolish this ‘chamber of chequewriters’ because, for taxpayers as well as democrats, the sooner this unaccountable financial drain is abolished, the better.”
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