Blackwood appointment shows Tories ignoring demands for House of Lords reform

Responding to the reports that Nicola Blackwood has been given a peerage in the House of Lords, Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords Dick Newby said:

“With the announcement of another Tory peerage for life, the Prime Minister continues to move away from the proposals set out in the Burns Report which would ensure a fair reduction of numbers in the House of Lords.

“The proposed reforms are completely undermined by this appointment.  If we are to make serious progress with reform of the House of Lords we need cross-party agreement and, crucially, cross-party commitment.

“Our outdated electoral system means that many feel politics does not work for them. It is long overdue that the Conservative Government stopped ignoring demands for reform.”

[Note: Nicola Blackwood is the Conservative who gained the parliamentary seat of Oxford West and Abingdon from Evan Harris in 2010, but lost to Layla Moran, now our party's speaker on education in England, in 2017.]