Transcript

House of : an audio collection How do you get to be a member of the ?

Interviewer: How do you get to be a member of the House of Lords?

Richard Heffernan: Historically you were appointed for the duration of your life. And as a hereditary peer, you're entitled to pass down that right to be a Member of Parliament to your male heir and successor. Presently the majority of members of the House of Lords now are life peers, appointed on the recommendation of the prime minister by the queen to serve for the duration of their lifetime. There are some 820 peers, members of the House of Lords at present. Of those the majority are life peers, but there are 92 remaining hereditary peers.

There are also 26 bishops. The Church of is the established church. This has always had representation in the legislature, and 26 bishops nominated by the Church of England led by the Archbishop of Canterbury serve in the upper house.

Being a peer is a privilege afforded to you by the patronage of the prime minister. Prime ministers usually appoint people twice a year officially, and at other times as necessary, in order to reward people for the services they've made to the country, to prime ministers, or to the prime minister's party. And to ensure that there are people represented in Parliament in the upper house to do the work of the House of Lords.

It's a very big chamber. 820 peers also at present. To be a peer is not to be salaried. It is not considered to be a full-time job, even if some peers treat it as such. If you are a peer you are entitled each day to be paid £300 when you attend the House of Lords. Some peers, should they wish, can claim a lower rate of 150 and some, wealthy in their own right, may forego a fee. But £300 per day is the usual rate.

The overwhelming majority of peers are honest, but some, according to the former Baroness D'Souza, can simply turn up, sign the register of attendance, and so claim the daily fee without necessarily participating in the work of the House. Some peers attend the House more than others, but many peers, however, are working peers, and take seriously their work in the House of Lords.

Lords payments are tax-free. So, if a peer attends all sittings in the House of Lords in an average year, they would receive a tax-free salary of some £43,000 per year, plus travel expenses to and from their place of residence. I suppose the Lords, like any workplace, contains all sorts of people, able and less able, active and inactive, effective and less effective. But being a peer is clearly a job of sorts, even if the House of Lords is a less professional chamber than the House of Commons, which is composed of professional politicians, elected to represent people from constituencies, who receive a guaranteed salary at an office expense to do their job.

The type of people who are appointed to the House of Lords by successive prime ministers are of several types. Many of them are former parliamentarians and ministers, senior party staff, local government leaders, public sector administrators, and prominent public figures. A whole variety of people go to the House of Lords, usually as a reward for public service.

Historically all former prime ministers are immediately ennobled on the time they left the House of Commons. Mrs. Thatcher, when she stopped being an MP in 1992, became Lady Thatcher. But since John Major left Downing Street, , Gordon Brown, and so far David Cameron, none of them have elected to go to the House of Lords. Which is very interesting because historically it was a place to which all former senior politicians were sent. So for example, most recently William Hague, the former , when he left the House of Commons and retired from politics, was appointed Lord Hague by David Cameron, and serves in the upper house in that capacity today.

There is a close correlation in history between and making donations to political parties. While Oxford research recently found out that of the 303 lords who had been nominated between 2005 and 2014, some 92 had made donations to political parties. Some £33.8 million. 95% of that 33.8 million was donated by 27 people who became peers, and 20% of Conservative peers created by David Cameron have been, in fact, Conservative party donors and serve in the House of Lords today as a result of their service to the party and that former prime minister.