Call for Evidence

The House of Lords plays an important constitutional role in the UK political system, but questions of appointments, its size and composition and the effectiveness of its role in relations to the House of Commons have persisted for some time and remain unaddressed. These issues have repeatedly been brought to the fore in regard to Government appointments to the House of Lords.

In 2018, following the recommendations of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the size of the House ('the Burns report’), our predecessor Committee took the view that there were some incremental reforms relating to appointments to and the size of the House of Lords which needed to be made in short order to restore public confidence in that Chamber. Five years on, these reforms have not taken place and the Government has not carried out the review it committed to undertaking.

While there are and have for some time been calls for the replacement of the second chamber, the immediate questions in relation to the current make up of House of Lords, cannot and should, not be ignored pending any longer-term debates around wholesale reform, or abolition.

The Committee welcomes submissions addressing any or all the following themes:

• Appointments to the House of Lords 
• Are the current arrangements for appointments to the House of Lords sufficiently robust to produce an effective and trusted Chamber?
• What reforms, if any, should be made to the current appointments process?
• How should the rules governing the appointments process be set out? Is guidance and convention sufficient or is a statutory basis for such appointments required? 

• House of Lords Appointments Committee (HOLAC) 
• Is HOLAC carrying out its role effectively? 
• Are changes needed to the role and powers of HOLAC? If so, what, how and why? 

• Size and membership 
• How effective is the House of Lords in its current size?
• Should the size of the House of Lords be limited? If so, to what size and how will that be achieved?
• Should there be a term limit for membership to the House of Lords?
• How effective are current arrangements/processes for removing or suspending Members from the House of Lords?
• What expectations should be placed on Peers as regards participation in House of Lords business?

• Role of the House of Lords and relationship to the House of Commons 
• Is the House of Lords still effectively carrying out its role as the ‘Revising Chamber’? 
• What other roles should the House of Lords perform in the UK constitutional arrangements? 

The deadline for submissions is Monday 16 October 2023