§ Lord Craig of Radleyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether the interim Appointments Commission will be asked to recommend four or five individuals twice a year (as foreshadowed in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Executive Search advertisement in The Sunday Times of 6 February) for life peerages; whether these will be created as independent Peers to sit in the Upper House for life; and whether those peerages recommended by the interim Appointments Commission will be in place of the life peerages awarded by Her Majesty in the Birthday and New Year Honours Lists on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, commencing with the Birthday Honours list this year. [HL1212]
§ The Lord Privy Seal (Baroness Jay of Paddington)The Government will maintain the Cross-Bench representation at approximately the present proportion of life Peers. We envisage that this means it will be necessary to create approximately the same number of peers as has been the case at the same time as the Birthday and New Year Honours Lists in the recent past.
195WAThe non-political persons recommended for peerages by the Appointments Commission will be expected to sit as independent life Peers in the House of Lords.
The peerages recommended by the interim Appointments Commission will replace the life peerages awarded by Her Majesty in parallel with the Birthday and New Year Honours Lists on the recommendation of the Prime Minister. The commission itself will have to consider whether it can properly produce recommendations for peerages to coincide with the publication of the Birthday Honours List in June.