House of Lords Reform and Size of the House of Commons

Debate between Michael Gove and Pete Wishart

Wednesday 19th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Pete Wishart]

The hon. Gentleman is spot on, although actually it is worse than that, as the last figures we have are for 2014-15, when the cost of the House of Lords was approaching £100 million—that is what we are actually spending on it. Instead of reducing that, this Government’s sole intention and ambition on the House of Lords is to continue to increase the size of that place.

Let us take a cursory look at our latest batch of new parliamentarians—the 16 new appointees from the former Prime Minister’s resignation list. This list was oozing and dripping with patronage and cronyism. We now have 16 shiny new parliamentarians to welcome to these Houses of Parliament, but let us look at who they are. Thirteen of them are Conservative—[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] Let me tell people exactly what they are like before they say that. Five of them were senior members of staff in the former Prime Minister’s office, with one a former special adviser to that Prime Minister. One was a special adviser to the former Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. One is a Conservative treasurer who just so happened to have given the Conservative party millions and millions of pounds over the years. Curiously—this is the one that gets me—one is the former leader of the Conservative remain campaign, who, I suggest, is not getting a peerage for any great success that he has delivered to the Conservative party.

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

I rise to correct the hon. Gentleman. The Conservative leader of the remain campaign is a she, not a he. If the hon. Gentleman professes to be an expert on appointments to that Chamber, it would at least be appropriate for him to recognise that it achieves gender balance as well as having many other virtues.

[Pete Wishart]

There are many things that can be defined as redeeming features, and that is one that I accept, so I thank the right hon. Gentleman for pointing it out.

The new parliamentarians of Great Britain are strangers to the ballot box, but very good friends of the former Prime Minister.

--- Later in debate ---

[Pete Wishart]

Only land-locked Lesotho has elders as a feature of its democracy. This is the mother of all parliaments for goodness’ sake, and we still have people here because of birthright! It is absurd.

[Michael Gove]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Pete Wishart]

I have given way to the right hon. Gentleman before. [Interruption.] Oh, well, I will give way.

[Michael Gove]

Once again, I will have to correct the hon. Gentleman on a point of fact. This is not the mother of all parliaments. The original phrase the “mother of parliaments” refers to this country, not to this institution, and the “mother of all” is a prefix associated with the Iraq war. If he is going to pack so many factual errors into his speech, how can we possibly take him seriously as a constitutional or any other sort of authority? He was a marvellous player and lyricist for Runrig, but as a constitutional theoretician, I am afraid that, sadly, he falls short.

[Pete Wishart]

On a positive note, I am very grateful that we have the right hon. Gentleman in this Chamber to correct me. I always thought that he had an issue with experts, but, clearly, he is a self-appointed one himself. We will let him get away with it just now.