Baroness Stowell of Beeston (Con)

My Lords, it is a great privilege to follow the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Like him, I have a similar view that the House of Lords Appointments Commission should not be able to constrain the powers of the Prime Minister. Our system of appointment may not be perfect, but it does at least have some semblance of accountability, in that the person who is responsible ultimately is directly elected. However, although I would therefore not support any amendment that gave greater powers to HOLAC, that does not mean that we should pay no attention to what a Prime Minister does, or that we should not seek clarification about what he intends. So I was intrigued by the Prime Minister’s Written Ministerial Statement of only last month—19 June—setting out the roles and responsibilities of all parties in making nominations to this House, and especially by what he had to say about his and HOLAC’s roles in relation to the Cross Benches. In his Statement, the Prime Minister reminds us that HOLAC determines the suitability as well as the propriety of any Cross-Bench Peer it nominates to him for recommendation to the King. As I think other noble Lords have said, but I will add for clarification, I personally would not want HOLAC to have a role in considering the suitability of nominations from any political leader to the political ranks. The Prime Minister also says in his Statement: “I will continue to recommend directly for appointment a limited number of candidates to sit as Crossbench peers … These nominations will … be vetted for propriety by the House of Lords Appointments Commission”.—[Official Report, Commons, 19/6/25; cols. 26-27WS.] The Prime Minister is making it clear that, for any peerage that he nominates straight to the Cross Benches, HOLAC’s role is only to look at the propriety of such nominations, which I think is quite interesting.