Friday, December 12, 2025
Starmer adds more peers than he has removed
They say that the prime minister has put forward 25 new members for the House of Lords, including his former director of communications Matthew Doyle and Rachel Reeves’s ex-chief of staff Katie Martin:
The list of potential new Lords follows staunch opposition from peers to Labour’s flagship Employment Rights Bill.
A Labour source said: “The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off. This needs to be corrected to deliver on our mandate from the British people. “
Women’s rights activist Sharron Davies was nominated by Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch, alongside ex-Tory cabinet minister John Redwood and journalist and historian Simon Heffer.
Another Labour aide Carol Linforth, seen on stage removing Sir Keir’s jacket when he was glitter-bombed during his 2023 Labour conference speech, is also on the list, as well as Sir Michael Barber, who served in No 10 during Sir Tony Blair’s premiership.
Last year, he was appointed an adviser to Sir Keir to help him drive forward the delivery of his five “missions”.
At least Starmer avoided the faux pas of nominating former Welsh First Minister, Vaughan Gething, a move that would have really undermined Labour's Senedd campaigning.
Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrats made a total of five nominations, including former MP and coalition government minister, Sarah Teather.
How anybody can justify the continuation of this over-bloated institution is beyond me, it needs fundamental reform to democratise it. As the Electoral Reform Society says it's 'ridiculous' that Starmer has created more peers than he's removed.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers:
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.
I can understand why Ed Davey nominated additional peers, but really, he and the rest of the party should be fighting tooth and nail to abolish the Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, issued this statement criticising the appointment of more political peers:
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.
I can understand why Ed Davey nominated additional peers, but really, he and the rest of the party should be fighting tooth and nail to abolish the Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber.
