Donors and “cronies” should be removed from the House of Lords, an SNP MP has said, as he called for the upper chamber to be abolished altogether.
Pete Wishart described Parliament’s second chamber as an “absurd embarrassment” and criticised the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill for not going far enough.
Speaking during the Bill’s committee stage, Mr Wishart also hit out at the Labour Government for not being prepared to “kick out the bloody bishops”.
The place is an absurd embarrassment, by the way it does business, by the way it allows a certain membership, and the way that it presents itself to the world
The MP for Perth and Kinross-shire branded the Bill, which proposes to remove the rights of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords, a “pathetic, little, minuscule Bill” that “should have been done centuries ago”.
He told the Commons: “I’m just someone who intrinsically believes that if you represent the people, you should be voted by the people.
“That to legislate requires consent, through some sort of electoral mandate, a group of people who vote for you to go into a legislature and to represent them, and allow you to make the laws of this land.”
Mr Wishart pressed the Government to honour the “historic commitment” made by the Labour Party to abolish the House of Lords.
He added: “I’ve managed to secure amendments that will abolish the donors, will abolish the appointees, the cronies, the cronies that the Prime Minister appoints to fill that place.
“And to abolish this idea that I’ve just described, that former Members of Parliament can just naturally assume that they will get a place in the House of Lords.”
Mr Wishart went on to say: “The donors, the people who have a place in our legislature, people who could design, comment, reflect on the laws of this country, whose only seeming and apparent ability is to give large sums of money to one of the three main UK establishment parties.
“Now, we’ve heard a lot about trust from them, we’ve heard a lot about what the public feel about politicians and the political institutions, how about solving this one?
“How about taking money out of the legislature? How about saying that if you give money to one of the three big political parties, you are therefore naturally debarred from taking a place in the legislature?
“Now, my amendment, sensible amendment, deals with it in a stroke – no more cash for honours, no more lists of Tory treasurers being naturally given a place in the House of Lords.
“My amendment says if you have given more than £11,800 to one of the three establishment parties, you are not entitled to a place in the House of Lords.
“And if you have given more than £11,800 in the past to one of the three main UK establishment parties, you naturally give up your place. What’s wrong with that?”
How on earth can we be in a situation in 2024 where we have bishops legislating in a modern, advanced, industrial democracy? It is beyond a joke
He continued: “The place is an absurd embarrassment, by the way it does business, by the way it allows a certain membership, and the way that it presents itself to the world.
“And we have this opportunity this evening to try and improve it, to try and deal with it, to try and see if we could get some sort of solution to what this country does on a democratic basis.
“But they’re not grabbing it. They’re not even prepared to kick out the bloody bishops, for goodness sake.
“How on earth can we be in a situation in 2024 where we have bishops legislating in a modern, advanced, industrial democracy? It is beyond a joke.”
The MP argued that the bishops will “stand out like a sore thumb in a cassock” when the hereditary peers have been removed.
He added: “How about sticking to their ministries? It’s not as if they’re without a whole range of issues just now.
“Wouldn’t they be better deployed in dealing with some of the things that we’ve seen in the news (over) the course of the past few days, far less concerning themselves with this attempt to run our country.”
Mr Wishart also criticised the £346 allowance members of the House of Lords receive for attending the chamber.
He said: “They don’t pay a penny of tax, not one penny of tax. They are amongst the wealthiest people in this nation, but not one penny of the £346 that they get just for turning up is paid in tax.”
