Speaker of House of Lords warns Theresa May against appointing new peers to get Brexit bills passed

Lord Fowler said the Prime Minister should not follow David Cameron's example in handing out peerages

Prime Minister Theresa May (AP)

The speaker of the House of Lords has warned Theresa May against stuffing the Chamber with new peers in a bid to get Brexit through.

Lord Fowler, a Tory peer until he took up the speaker's post in the Chamber, intervened after threats that ministers might "do a Lloyd George and create a thousand peers" to pass the Government’s Brexit legislation if those already in the Lords opposed it.

He said the upper chamber would not "sabotage" Brexit, while pointing out that the House is already too large and that Ms May should "move away from the example" of David Cameron when it came to approving large numbers of new peers.

Tory peers were among the first to demand Ms May let Parliament vote on the deal that she strikes with the EU. Then shortly after the party's conference, a cabinet minister told The Independent the Government may "do a Lloyd George" and flood the upper House with friendly peers if those there attempted to undermine the drive to Brexit.

Writing in The Telegraph Lord Fowler said: "It is not my role to enter into the politics of Brexit, but I do think that I am entitled to defend the House of Lords from this kind of attack.

He adds: "The Lords recognise the primacy of the Commons based on the fact that they are the elected chamber and we are not.

"In return most MPs value the check that scrutiny by the Lords provides. We are not here to sabotage legislation – we are here to improve it."

He goes on to say that one of the problems with the Lords is that so many new peers were appointed by successive Prime Ministers between 1997 and 2016, during which 653 new members joined the Chamber.

Lord Fowler said: "Mrs May herself, however, is making moves to change the honours system and I believe that she would be going with the grain if she herself was to decide to substantially move away from the example of her most immediate predecessors when it comes to peerages."