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Ace Press News From Cutting Room Floor: Published: Jul: 30: 2023:
AceNewsDesk - Charlotte Owen is the youngest peer in the House of Lords. But the newly minted baroness is outraging Britain
Britain's House of Lords was once a place reserved for bishops, magnates and nobleman, but still in the 21st century the appointment of a 30-year-old woman has sparked national controversy.
Lady Owen was a special adviser to both Boris Johnson and Liz Truss during their stints as PM.(PA via Getty Images: Gareth Fuller)none
When Charlotte Owen entered the lavishly decorated upper chamber in Westminster to take her seat, she was more than 40 years younger than the average peer.
She is believed to be the youngest person in history to be given a life peerage in the once highly aristocratic, male-dominated House of Lords.
The position brings with it the title of baroness, a $640 daily allowance for each sitting day attended, and a vote on government policy.
Her appointment has not been celebrated but questioned and ridiculed. It has even led to renewed calls to reform the UK's "deeply undemocratic" upper house.
Unlike MPs in the House of Commons, those who sit in the upper chamber are not elected. Most are appointed by the monarch on advice of the prime minister and government, then called peers.
Dozens of Church of England leaders and around 90 hereditary peers also make up 827 members, with about 784 of them eligible to attend proceedings.
The new Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge
Lady Owen was sworn in to the House of Lords on Monday.(UK Parliament via parliamentlive.tv)
Former British prime minister Boris Johnson granted Lady Owen and six other individuals life peerage in his resignation honours list, labelled as his "final act of madness," by the Independent newspaper.
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"That's not the kind of person who you're supposed to put in the Lords," political commentator and author Ian Dunt told ABC News.
"Suddenly she's going to sit there for 50 years, half a century, on the basis of nothing but having been mates with the prime minister."
Lady Owen was a deeply loyal political aide to the Conservative leader, seen standing with a group of his closest allies outside Downing Street when he stepped down from the top job in July 2022.
She graduated from university less than eight years ago and worked in junior roles for Mr Johnson and two other Conservative MPs before becoming an advisor in the prime minister's office in 2021.
Her stint at Number 10 lasted less than two years, where she worked for Mr Johnson, and briefly under Liz Truss during her 49-day stint as prime minister.
"You can't allow appointments to continue in the way that they are right now, with the prime minister and former prime ministers just making these obscene and preposterous recommendations for their mates and cronies," Mr Dunt said.
Baron Kempsell of Letchworth, another millennial peer
Peerage in the House of Lords should be offered to esteemed individuals after important work or public service, and often they will be party-political appointments, Mr Dunt said.
"These are supposed to be people who've done very impressive things like former secretaries of state ... they have decades of experience, and it's useful to have them in the revision chamber looking over what the government is doing."
While former prime minister Margaret Thatcher became a peer after her time leading the country, the likes of Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and David Cameron all have not received peerage.
"There's no record of [Charlotte Owen] ever having accomplished anything impressive in her working life so far, [but] she's only 30 so you can't hold that against her," Mr Dunt said.
Among the other individuals who Mr Johnson sent to the House of Lords was another of his political staffers who had barely settled into his 30s, Ross Kempsell.
Ross Kempsell, 31, who served as the former prime minister's spokesperson, is now Baron Kempsell of Letchworth.
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The 31-year-old was a former spokesman and aide to Boris Johnson, journalist and a political director for the Conservative Party.
His appointment has attracted much less attention than Lady Owen's, who has been the subject of extensive news reporting in the British press.
"The prime minister can insist on loyalty during their time in power by saying, 'Look, as long as you stick with me, as long as you do what I want you to do, I can make you a lord,'" Mr Dunt said.
"[Over time] it's filled the House of Lords with, frankly, some suboptimal people."
House of Lords appointment relies on 'good chaps' theory
It's customary for outgoing prime ministers to award resignation honours, which include not just peerages, but also dames, knighthoods and orders.
Several of Mr Johnson's picks caused upset, as they included former staffers and officials who were involved in illegal lockdown parties during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
"There was considerable controversy over the size and composition of prime minister Boris Johnson's resignation list, with over half of initial nominees not being approved by the House of Lords Appointments Commission," a July report from the Lord Speaker's committee detailed.
Mr Johnson also awarded life peerage to his former chief of staff, Dan Rosenfield, who was in charge during much of the lockdown rule-breaking at Number 10, and Shaun Bailey, a member of the London Assembly who was also caught up in "partygate" incidents.
"[Mr Johnson] has come up with huge lists of people, some of them highly questionable … he's putting them forward for the Lords, which no respecting prime minister beforehand would have done," Mr Dunt said.
Lady Owen, 30, is now the youngest member of the House of Lords, where the average age of members is 71.(Reuters: Dan Kitwood)
" It's the good chaps theory of government, you know, that everyone's just got an idea of what decent behaviour is and they will follow it."
"It stops working when you get someone like Boris Johnson who has no regard for the rules."
Parliament should introduce a cap of 600 members in the House of Lords "to encourage party leaders to give more thought to their nominations", the report from the Lord Speaker's committee wrote.
The chamber has origins dating back as far as the 11th century, when it was attended by religious leaders, and the king's ministers. The House of Lords evolved from the Great Council that advised the monarch during medieval times.(Royal Collection: Peter Tillemans)
New calls to reform 'undemocratic' upper chamber
The House of Lords is the second-largest parliamentary chamber in the world. Only China's National People's Congress is bigger.
"It's a revision chamber and what that means is it doesn't initiate legislation and it can't really kill legislation either," Mr Dunt said.
It is different to the Australian Senate, as it cannot veto legislation, but can block legislation from passing for 13 months.
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For much of history it was the more influential parliamentary chamber, but its power has been scaled back through the centuries.
The last major reform to the House of Lords took place in 1999, when Tony Blair's government drastically slimmed down the number of hereditary peers.
This stopped members from inheriting a seat due to birthright alone, but there are still about 90 spots reserved for hereditary peers, who are now mostly selected through an internal vote.
But membership in the house has significantly inflated since that reform. Then it was around 675. Now it is over 800 strong.
Only 29 per cent of the members in the House of Lords are female, the average age is 71, and the majority are aligned with the Conservative Party.
The first women in the House of Lords took their seats in 1958, 40 years after women were granted the right to stand as MPs in the House of Commons.Less than a third of the members of the House of Lords are women. (Getty Images: Dan Kitwood)
Labour has vowed to abolish the upper house if it is elected, with Opposition Leader Keir Starmer describing the chamber as "indefensible" and "undemocratic".
Sir Keir unveiled plans led by former prime minister Gordon Brown to replace the House of Lords with an elected assembly of nations and regions.
"If the Labour Party were to form a government after the next general election, they would be in a difficult position in the House of Lords," the Lord Speaker's committee report wrote.
"At present they have … not much more than 20 per cent of peers."
The current British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, has not shown an inclination to try and reform the upper house or the appointments regime.
The House of Lords is at a heightened crisis point, Mr Dunt said.
"The system has never been as bad of a mess as it is now after Boris Johnson," he said.
"The effect of this has been to sort of radically diminish people's respect for it, people's willingness to accept it on its current constitutional terms."
ABC/BBC/U.K MEDIA/
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Lady Owen was sworn in to the House of Lords on Monday.(UK Parliament via parliamentlive.tv)
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