Nick Ferrari Calls Out Minister Over For Appointing More Peers

LBC’s Nick Ferrari cornered a Labour minister over the government’s attempts to deflect criticism after appointing 25 more peers to the House of Lords.

When in opposition in 2022, Keir Starmer promised: “Labour will rebuild trust by reforming the centre of government, and replacing the unelected House of Lords with a new, smaller, democratically-elected second chamber.”

He also accused his Tory predecessors of handing out peerages to “lackeys and donors”.

But on Wednesday night, it was revealed that the prime minister had appointed 25 more peers to the upper house in a bid to strengthen support for his legislation.

A former No.10 director of communications, Matthew Doyle, and a former chief of staff to Rachel Reeves, Katie Martin, were among the new appointments.

So on Thursday morning, presenter Ferrari asked local government minister Alison McGovern: “Why should my listeners believe a thing [Starmer] said?”

She replied: “Because we’ve been the party taking the steps to deal with the House of Lords, getting rid of the hereditary peers –”

“You just put more in, minister!” Ferrari said.

She said: “So, because we’ve had 14 years of Tory government –”

Ferrari cut in: “No, no, no, no. I’m sorry, that’s going to VAR. You cannot blame Sir Keir’s decision on 14 years of Conservative rule.

“Your party said it would be scrapped. You’re putting more in!”

McGovern said: “My point is you can blame the unbalanced nature of the House of Lords after 14 years of Tory rule and the rate at which they are putting people in.

“What we are doing is getting rid of the hereditaries because it is not right, in this day and age, in 2025, that anyone inherit the right to legislate.

“The next step is to limit the number by introducing an age limit.”

She also said the House of Lords has “got in the way” of a number of Labour’s flagship policies.

McGovern faced a similar standoff on Times Radio when presenter Stig Abell said this was an “astounding” move from Labour.

She replied: “I don’t think we promised to get rid of it but the next stage of House of Lords reform is to make sure that people have to retire at a certain age, at 80. And that will reduce, clearly that will reduce the number of people in the House of Lords.

“I think everybody wants to see parliament be representative and do a good job. In order to do that we have to make the changes that we are doing. And meanwhile we need to appoint good people who come from a range of backgrounds to take decisions.

“It’s a long-standing tradition I guess that people who’ve given service politically are appointed to the House of Lords. And look, not everyone will agree that political service is a part of public service.”

Meanwhile, a Labour source also told HuffPost UK: “The Tories stuffed the House of Lords, creating a serious imbalance that has allowed them to frustrate our plans to make working families better off. This needs to be corrected.”