Resignation honours
40. In his evidence to us, Lord Stevenson was initially
uncertain about the scope the Appointments Commission had over
scrutiny of resignation honours lists:
[...]. It is embarrassing for me, because frankly,
I think they should. I think it does, actually. I think this will
fall under our scrutiny but I am rather embarrassed that I cannot
give you complete certainty. I will follow it up afterwards and
give you complete certainty.[27]
41. He wrote to the Committee subsequently and told
us as that, "My understanding now is that if there is a Prime
Minister's resignation list, we will be asked to vet it".[28]
In answer to a Parliamentary Question put down by a member of
this Committee, Gordon Prentice MP, asking if he would make it
his policy to submit his resignation honours list to the Appointments
Commission for scrutiny and approval, the Prime Minister said,
"The House of Lords Appointments Commission will continue
to scrutinise any names put to them as appropriate, in the usual
way".[29]
Resignation honours are, of course, relatively rare
and "the usual way" is in fact more of a series of isolated
examples than the Prime Minister's answer would suggest. The PHSC
was involved with both Harold Wilson's and Margaret Thatcher's
resignation honours lists with differing effectiveness.42.
43. The Government's internal review of the honours
system which this Committee published in November 2003 described
the PHSC's role in the 'Lavender List' episode in the following
terms:
The biggest public controversy during the Committee's
77-year history was Harold Wilson's resignation list of 1976.
This episode demonstrated the Committee's ineffectiveness in the
face of a Prime Minister who ignored their comments and objections.
All but one of the original names appeared in the published list
despite the Committee's representations that they could not approve
of at least half of the list. The Committee was even uncertain
of its right to insist that its report be submitted to the Queen.[30]
44. There seems to have been confusion as to whether
a resignation list could be considered as conferring political
honours, and to whether it was legitimately a matter for scrutiny
by PHSC or just a reward for personal services. The view taken
seems to have been that half the names were not 'political' and
therefore outside the Committee's remit. Much of this is a matter
of public record, set out in the letter Lady Summerskill, the
Labour party nominee on the PHSC, wrote to The Times on
27 May 1977 where she revealed that the Committee had met to scrutinise
Wilson's list.
45. In contrast it appears that Mrs Thatcher's resignation
honours list was scrutinised by the PHSC with more success. It
was alleged at the time that she had proposed, among others, Rupert
Murdoch for an honorary knighthood and Jeffery Archer for a peerage,
but the PHSC had objected to both names which were duly removed.[31]
46. Since then the PHSC has been merged into the
Appointments Commission and the honours committees have been reformed
on a basis of greater independent participation. Despite the confusion
which seems to mark the extent to which resignation honours lists
are "political" and therefore appropriately the subject
of scrutiny by the Appointments Commission, it seems to us that
the logic of a list in which the Prime Minister is effectively
putting forward his own names for honours suggests this should
be open to scrutiny in a similar way to any names added by him
to the biannual honours lists. The
Prime Minister's vague assurances and the Appointment's Commission
"understanding" that it will vet any resignation honours
list are unnecessarily equivocal. The Appointments Commission
is specifically charged with considering names which have not
been subject to the normal assessment and selection processes.
This body should be clearly and unequivocally responsible for
vetting Prime Ministerial resignation honours lists.
Dissolution honours
47. We are concerned that the use of peerages as
a means of political patronage can also take subtler forms. Anecdotal
evidence suggests that certain Members of Parliament who resign
their seats very close to a general election, thus allowing the
party leadership greater leeway in selecting a successor candidate,
find their way into the House of Lords. Using appointment to the
legislature as a means of party management risks undermining the
workings and the reputation of the House of Lords which the Appointments
Commission is charged to protect. This was a practice over which
the Appointments Commission felt they had limited, if any, locus,
restricting their scrutiny to matters of propriety rather than
suitability with regard to party nominees as working peers. Lord
Stevenson told us that:
… as a general proposition, going back - and
you are describing someone who I am sure does not exist, some
very straightforward, undistinguished, completely honourable MP,
but who in your judgement, in this hypothetical state, might not
be someone who would contribute a great deal to the House of Lords
- having checked that that person passed our propriety tests,
that would be it. We do not have a brief to assess people for
what I call suitability.[32]
48. However, when pressed about the possibility that
a seat in the Commons might be exchanged for one in the Lords,
he conceded that:
It is reasonable to conjecture that if we found that,
in some sense of the word "sold", someone had sold their
seat, it would be reasonable for this Commission to look at that
under the propriety test…[33]
49. Wider
party responsibility over the choice of candidates should also
help to overcome concerns over MPs announcing their retirement
from the Commons in the immediate run up to a general election
and being subsequently ennobled in the dissolution honours list.
The impression of peerages being offered as inducements in kind,
rather than conferred in the expectation of future participation
in the legislature, is damaging. To the extent that it happens,
it should stop.
27 Ev 21 Back
28
Ev 25 Back
29
HC Deb, 8 June 2006, col 827W Back
30
www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/JP%204wilkdoc%20Oversight.doc Back
31
Adam Raphael, "'Honours that carry a whiff of corruption",
The Observer, 23 December 1990 Back
32
Ev 16 Back
33
Ibid. Back
