With Downing Street expected to announce the Queen's birthday honours list later this month, Unlock Democracy is calling on Prime Minister David Cameron to suspend new appointments to the House of Lords until new rules have been introduced to prevent members of the second chamber from working as paid policy consultants, following the revelations made over the weekend by the Sunday Times, Telegraph and BBC Panorama Programme.
The coalition government is widely predicted to be on the verge of creating between 30 and 60 new Tory and Lib Dem peers in the birthday honours, to redress what it considers to be Labour over-representation in the House of Lords. Unlock Democracy, which supports a fully elected second chamber, believes the creation of new peers is unsustainable and that the new sleaze scandals make it especially urgent to reform the chamber before considering new appointments.
The director of Unlock Democracy Peter Facey said: "The House of Lords is already unsustainable; it is already one of the largest legislative chambers in the world with over 800 members. Adding to that at a time when it is beginning to resemble a free-for-all for lobbyists and political consultants would be the height of irresponsibility. The government needs to crack down on what paid work all parliamentarians can take - and in particular tighten up the rules in the House of Lords which remain appallingly lax even after the 'cash for influence' scandal in 2009. Only after that has been fixed should they even consider making any further appointments."
