Member

The noble Lord mentioned again about the Prime Minister making appointments. The Prime Minister does not make all appointments; appointments go through the Prime Minister, but political parties nominate. The noble Lord smiles at me, but he will know that under the last Government the proportion of new appointments to the Opposition was significantly lower than the proportion the Government took to themselves. I have given this figure before but, at the end of the 2010 Session, when Labour had been in government, we had 25 more Peers than the Conservative Party. After the same period of time, but a period of Conservative Governments, there were more than 100 more Conservative than Labour Peers. That imbalance does not serve the House well, and I would like to get back to having a better balance between parties.