Member

The noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, also spoke about this being a House appointed wholly by the Prime Minister. He knows as well as I do that appointments go through the Prime Minister. I think we showed good faith on this side of the House when, in the last round of appointments, a number of appointments were given to the party opposite—and I spoke to the noble Lord about this. We were not playing games on numbers, as we have seen from the party opposite over the last 10 years, excepting under the noble Baroness, Lady May, who behaved with integrity at all times in her appointments. It would be a bit cheeky, I suppose, to say to the noble Lord that those who have hereditary peerages are themselves recipients of a form of patronage from the Prime Minister or the monarch of the time. It is just a question of when they were awarded.