Lords Appointments: Life Peerages Created Since 1958
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Library Briefing Life Peerages: Creations since 1958 Table of Contents 1. Creation of life peers Summary 2. Statistics 3. Appointments In 2020, Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced 58 new life peers. This was Commission peers the largest number of new life peers announced in one calendar year since 4. List of life peers 2010, the year the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition Government came created under the 1958 into power. Act The most recent list of new life peers was announced on 22 December 2020. It featured 16 new life peers, broken down into the following groups: • 7 Conservative peers; • 5 Labour peers; and • 4 Crossbench peers. The same day, the Government announced that David Wolfson would be given a life peerage to enable him to become Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Justice. Boris Johnson has now appointed 79 life peers since he became prime minister in July 2019. This is almost twice as many as Theresa May created during her three years in office (43). By comparison, David Cameron created 120 life peers in his first 18 months in office. Tony Blair created 101 in that time. Tony Blair created the most life peers of any prime minister during his time in office (374) and David Cameron created the second highest number (245). To date, 1,517 life peers have been created under the Life Peerages Act 1958. The highest number of appointments occurred in the 1990s, followed by the 2010s. These decades marked Labour coming into office in 1997, the Coalition in 2010 and the Conservative victory in 2015. Just over 1 in 5 of the life peer appointments have been women. Around a third have been awarded to former MPs. This briefing provides a further breakdown of life peer creations by prime minister and by decade. It also contains a list of every life peer announced since 1958. Russell Taylor 20 January 2021 Table of Contents 1. Creation of life peers 1 2. Statistics 1 2.1 How many life peers have been created? ............................................................................. 2 2.2 Statistics by decade .................................................................................................................... 4 3. Appointments Commission peers 6 4. List of life peers created under the 1958 Act 6 ____________________________________________________________________________ A full list of Lords Library briefings is available on the research briefings page on the internet. The Library publishes briefings for all major items of business debated in the House of Lords. The Library also publishes briefings on the House of Lords itself and other subjects that may be of interest to Members. Library briefings are compiled for the benefit of Members of the House of Lords and their personal staff, to provide impartial, authoritative, politically balanced briefing on subjects likely to be of interest to Members of the Lords. Authors are available to discuss the contents of the briefings with the Members and their staff but cannot advise members of the general public. Any comments on Library briefings should be sent to the Head of Research Services, House of Lords Library, London SW1A 0PW or emailed to [email protected]. House of Lords Library Briefing I Life Peers Since 1958 1 1. Creation of life peers It is the Life Peerages Act 1958 that enables life peers to be created with the right to sit in the House of Lords.1 The Act also allowed female life peers to be appointed, marking the first occasion women could sit in the House of Lords.2 The power is conferred on the sovereign, who can create peers through letters patent on advice of the prime minister (although this relationship is not set out in the Act). There is no statutory limit on the number of new peerages. It is the prime minister who decides what number is appropriate. By convention, when recommending peerages for members of political parties other than their own, prime ministers take advice from the leader of that party. In practice, prime ministers will ask for that party’s nominations to a number of the prime minister’s choosing. In addition, the House of Lords Appointments Commission makes recommendations to the prime minister for non-party political (crossbench) peers. The commission also vets party nominations for propriety. Life peers could also be created under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. This Act was used to appoint a small number of law lords to the House. However, these powers are no longer available following the end of the House of Lords’ judicial role in 2009. More information on the Life Peerages Act 1958 can be found in the Lords Library briefing: Life Peerages Act 1958: 60th Anniversary, 28 March 2018. 2. Statistics Please note: the date of a new appointment referred to in this briefing is the date of the announcement of a new peerage, rather than the date of letters patent conferring the peerage or the date of introduction to the House of Lords. This makes it easier to compare the rate of new appointments to the Lords over time, as there can sometimes be a gap of weeks or months between the announcement of an intention to create a new peerage and the date on which a new Member is introduced in the Lords. While this method does ensure consistency, it does not follow that all appointments announced during a particular prime minister’s term of office were recommended by that prime minister: Theresa May’s resignation 1 House of Lords Library, Life Peerages Act 1958: 60th Anniversary, 28 March 2018. 2 House of Lords Library, Women in the House of Lords, 30 June 2015. 2 House of Lords Library Briefing I Life Peers Since 1958 honours list, for example, was issued in September 2019, during Boris Johnson’s premiership. Therefore, these peers are classified as having been appointed by Boris Johnson. 2.1 How many life peers have been created? As of 5 January 2021, including those life peers recently announced by Boris Johnson, 1,517 life peers will have been created under the 1958 Act. Just over 1 in 5 (21%) life peer appointments have been women. Of the 1,517, 1,191 have been men and 326 women. Around a third of life peerages (502) have been awarded to former MPs. In terms of affiliation at the time of creation: • 481 (32%) were affiliated to the Conservative Party at the time of creation; • 509 (33%) were affiliated to Labour; • 146 (10%) were affiliated to Liberal Democrats (or the Liberals or Social Democratic Party); • 360 (24%) were Crossbench; and • 21 (1%) were of another party or were non-affiliated. The following table shows life peer creations broken down by the prime minister in office at the time of the creation: XB/ Total (of which Dates Con Lab Lib/SDP Other women) January 1957 – Harold Macmillan 13 20 14 47 (7) October 1963 October 1963 – Sir Alec Douglas-Home 4 9 3 16 (2) October 1964 October 1964 – Harold Wilson 14 62 6 53 135 (14) June 1970 June 1970 – Edward Heath 8 9 2 26 45 (8) March 1974 March 1974 – Harold Wilson 22 39 5 14 80 (11) April 1976 April 1976 – James Callaghan 5 29 1 23 58 (5) May 1979 May 1979 – Margaret Thatcher 96 56 10 39 201 (27) November 1990 May 1990 – John Major 76 40 15 29 160 (29) May 1997 May 1997 – Tony Blair 62 162 54 96 374 (88) June 2007 House of Lords Library Briefing I Life Peers Since 1958 3 XB/ Total (of which Dates Con Lab Lib/SDP Other women) June 2007 – Gordon Brown 4 11 2 17 34 (10) May 2010 May 2010 – David Cameron 110 55 51 29 245 (83) July 2016 July 2016 – Theresa May 263 4 0 13 43 (17) July 2019 Boris Johnson July 2019 – 41 13 0 25 79 (20) Total 481 509 146 381 1,517 (326) The following graph shows life peer creations by calendar year since 2000.4 It shows that the largest number of life peer creations (121) occurred in 2010, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Government came into power. The second largest number of appointments were made in 2020 (58 life peers), closely followed by 2015 (57 life peers). Figure 1: Life peer creations by year, since 2000 Life peer creations by year 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 The next graph shows the average number of creations a year by the last five prime ministers. Current Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not included in this comparison because he has only served one full year to date and prime 3 It should be noted that Andrew Tyrie is included in the Conservative numbers as he was originally announced among the Conservative Party’s nominations for new Members (Prime Minister’s Office, ‘Queen Confers Peerages’, 18 May 2018). However, it was subsequently announced that he would sit as a non-affiliated Member (HL Hansard, 22 May 2018, col 982). 4 The dates used are the dates the life peers were announced. 4 House of Lords Library Briefing I Life Peers Since 1958 ministers tend to appoint more peers in their first year (in part, due to nominations from previous prime ministers). He has announced 79 peers so far. For comparison, Tony Blair created 69 life peers in his first year and David Cameron created 117. Years served has been rounded up or down as follows: • John Major: 7 years • Tony Blair: 10 years • Gordon Brown: 3 years • David Cameron: 6 years • Theresa May: 3 years Figure 2: Average life peer creations per year by the last five prime ministers The graph shows that creations per year were highest under David Cameron and lowest under Gordon Brown.