Ex-UK foreign minister Hague among House of Lords appointees

Along with a handful of ex-MPs, advisors to ministers as well as Stephen Gilbert, Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party and Emma Pidding, former Chairman of the National Conservative Convention, the House of Lords is now awash with the great and the good, put there because of party affiliations or for decent donations to the party cause.

While the Lords can introduce, amend and block legislation, its members usually see their role as acting as a “revising chamber”, improving bills sent by the elected House of Commons.

Hague led the Conservatives from 1997 to 2001, when they suffered their second-worst election result in modern history. In 2014/15 the net cost of having the House of Lords in place was just under £100m.

The Scottish lingerie tycoon, who has been appointed to head a review encouraging new businesses in employment black-spots, had been tipped for a peerage earlier this month, with reports Prime Minister David Cameron had informed her of the news via telephone.

The new appointments come despite concern there are already too many peers, and the government has been accused of burying the announcement amid a flurry of statistic releases including immigration figures and SATs scores. According to the Electoral Commission, Mr Cameron would have to appoint 723 more members to reproduce the balance of MPs.

The government has previously tried to encourage peers to retire. David Blunkett, Alistair Darling, Sir Menzies Campbell and Douglas Hogg are all newly-created peers.

“This is a sorry list of rejected and retired party politicians – cronies and hangers-on with big check books,” she said.

Ed Miliband has gifted peerages to a raft of former Labour ministers who quit the Commons at the general election.

The Liberal Democrat Peers in the House of Lords are in a hugely privileged position.

Of those to be appointed this year, 26 are Conservative, 11 are Lib Dem and eight are Labour.

Former Foreign Secretary William Hague headed a line of ex-ministers with former Chief Whip Sir George Young and ex-Universities Minister David Willetts.

They can chose to claim a lower rate of £150 for work away from Westminster or official visits.

The increasing cost of the Lords, who can claim up to 300 pounds ($460) per day for attending parliament, at a time of public sector pay restrictions and public spending cuts has boosted calls for reform or outright abolition of the chamber.

The Lib Dems insist they are perfectly entitled to the extra peers they’ve got because a Dissolution honours looks backwards to the last Parliament doesn’t have to reflect the last election (the latter was the position the Libs signed up to in the Coalition Agreement of 2010).

“The rest are a mixture of time-servers, leaders’ mates, downright dregs and at least one hefty donor to party funds”, he says. Of the total, £20.7m was spent on members’ allowances and expenses.