Starmer accused of ‘stuffing' House of Lords with allies before axing hereditary peers
Sir Keir Starmer has been accused of 'stuffing' the House of Lords with his allies at the same time as attempting to abolish hereditary peers.
The Prime Minister has appointed the most life peers to his party's benches in his first 200 days than any other leader in the last 30 years, apart from David Cameron.
Sir Keir has created 37 Labour life peers in that time, compared to 35 by Sir Tony Blair, 10 by Boris Johnson and 13 by Baroness May.
The Prime Minister made more party peerages in his first 200 days than Baroness May, Mr Johnson and Rishi Sunak in their first 200 days combined.
It comes ahead of the Hereditary Peers Bill, which will abolish all the remaining hereditary peers from the Upper Chamber, returning to the House of Lords for scrutiny on Monday.
The legislation will see 45 Tories booted out of the House of Lords, along with 33 crossbenchers and just four Labour peers.
Meanwhile, Sir Keir has appointed several ex-union officials and long-standing allies from his time at Camden council to the Upper Chamber, as well as ex-MPs.
Critics have claimed that ridding the Upper Chamber of so many Conservatives while adding several Labour peers shows Sir Keir's move is 'nothing to do with reform'.
Lord Strathclyde, a Conservative hereditary peer and former Lords leader, said: 'It is a simple partisan act to remove his opponents while stuffing the place with his friends. That's what it's all about.'
He added: 'It is the same old Labour nonsense on class war. 'Get the old hereditary peers out whom we don't like and replace them with our chums that we do.''
Lord Mancroft, fellow Conservative hereditary peer, said: 'It's staggering. It's not a route to democracy. It's constitutional abuse.
'We've spent hundreds of years slowly and carefully and painfully constructing our constitution, and these politicians just want to break it.'
A Labour source called criticisms over Sir Keir's appointments 'desperate stuff from those yet to reconcile themselves with the fact that Labour is completing the job we started 25 years ago of removing hereditary peers from the Lords'.
They added that even without the hereditary peers on their benches, the Tories would remain the largest party in the Upper Chamber.
Among those who have been put into the House of Lords by Sir Keir since taking office, including Brendan Barber, Mary Bousted and Kay Carberry, former trade union bosses.
Mike Katz, a former Camden councillor from the Prime Minister's time in politics in the borough, has also been appointed.
They join Sue Gray, Sir Keir's former chief of staff, and Thangam Debbonaire, ex-shadow minister, in the House of Lords.
Ms Debbonaire, the former shadow culture secretary, lost her seat in Bristol West to the Green Party in 2024.
Individuals are nominated to the House of Lords for their contribution to society and public and political service.
All appointments are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Over 100 amendments have been tabled to the five-clause Hereditary Peers Bill, which is scheduled for four days of debate in the House of Lords but is expected to take longer than expected.
Critics of the Bill have been accused of delaying tactics to try and scupper Labour's plans to immediately rid the House of Lords of all its hereditary peers, but the Tories have denied the claims.
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