Betty Boothroyd’s final speech was to slam PMs for handing peerages to wealthy friends
The late Baroness Betty Boothroyd had deliberate to make use of her closing speech within the House of Lords to criticise Prime Ministers for doling out peerages to wealthy friends.
Lady Boothroyd, the primary and solely feminine Commons Speaker, died in February 2023 aged 93-years-old. She was planning to make a farewell speech within the Lords earlier than she retired however she turned too sick to ship it.
But she had signed off the ultimate draft, which her former secretary Sir Nicholas Bevan organized to be printed. In the speech, reported by the Daily Telegraph, she wrote: “Successive Prime Ministers have attached importance to their power of patronage; in my view this should be exercised far less generously than has tended to be the case in the recent past.
“Of course, Prime Ministers ought to be permitted to make appointments on leaving workplace however they need to be restricted of their proposals and they need to not embrace those that are merely mates or don’t have any different {qualifications} than having fats financial institution accounts from which they’ve bankrolled the occasion in energy.”
It comes after Boris Johnson and Liz Truss both faced criticism for sending a string of pals and cronies to the Lords. Ms Truss signed off a resignation honours list despite only serving as Prime Minister for 49 days.
Lady Boothroyd said the Appointments Commission should be given greater say on all nominations for the House of Lords, as it currently only has an advisory role. She wrote: “The fee’s powers mustn’t merely be advisory however ought to be placed on a statutory foundation. Nobody ought to turn into a member of this House if a statutory Appointments Commission has reservations about their suitability.”
Lady Boothroyd also warned that the House of Lords had reached an “absurd” size with more than 800 members – and said she didn’t “see a job any longer for members who’re right here merely on account of their heredity”. She added: “Not solely can we not want so many members to hold out our function, however our dimension positively militates in opposition to effectiveness and effectivity and is unnecessarily costly.”
The veteran politician served as MP for West Bromwich and West Bromwich West from 1973 to 2000 and was the first woman Speaker of the House of Commons from 1992 to 2000. She then entered the Lords as a crossbench peer in January 2001.
