Peers need more vetting, says new head of House of Lords appointments

Peers should be more robustly vetted for suitability after public “disquiet” over candidates who appear to have been picked for being big donors or friends of those in power, the new head of the House of Lords appointments commission has said. Ruth Deech, a leading lawyer and academic who was chosen by the government to lead the commission, said she wanted to push for peers to pass not just propriety vetting but an assessment of suitability, to determine whether they merit their appointment. She would not be drawn on specific peers who may not be suitable to sit in the House of Lords. However, she told parliament’s public administration committee that there was “disquiet” about “people who apparently do not have the requisite qualities but appear to have been nominated because they have made very large donations or they are friends of people in power”. Boris Johnson put forward a string of former advisers, donors and political friends for elevation to the House of Lords, and pushed for the approval of a peerage for Evgeny Lebedev, the newspaper proprietor and son of the former KGB spy Alexander Lebedev, despite initial security concerns that were later withdrawn.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/oct/26/peers-need-more-vetting-says-new-head-of-house-of-lords-appointments

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