LONDON, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Political leaders in Britain's Conservative, Labor and Liberal Democratic parties deny they sold seats in the House of Lords to big donors.
This week, Conservatives created 14 new barons and baronesses while Labor got five, Liberal Democrats, 10, and the the leftwing Green Party, one, their first, The Daily Telegraph reported. Since 1999, the upper house has been a largely appointed body with life peers in the majority.
Michael Oakeshott, an investment manager and Liberal Democratic politician who sits in the Lords as Baron Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, said the spectacle of big donors getting peerages shows further reform is needed and the Lords should become an elected body.
"Cash for peerages pollutes parliament and political parties who collude in this," he told the Telegraph. "It's now more urgent and vital than ever that we elect the lords and get big money out of British politics for good."
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Some of the new peers were honored for other reasons. They include a new Labor peer, Doreen Lawrence, whose son, Stephen, was killed in 1993 in a racist attack, and Jenny Jones, a member of the London Assembly and now a Green baroness.
But they also include Sir Anthony Bamford, who has donated millions of dollars to the Conservative Party, and Sir William Haughey, a refrigerator magnate who has given the Labor Party more than a million pounds in the past 10 years.
Spokesmen for all three major parties denied the peerages were a reward for donors and said the new members of the house will be valuable additions.
Critics are also concerned about the size of the upper house. The 1999 reform bill cut the number of members to less than 700 but the Electoral Reform Society described the Lords as "bloated" and said the chamber could grow to about 2,000 after the 2015 election.
"Only China's set-up competes with the House of Lords in terms of size. And that's a real headache for whoever is in government after 2015," the group said in a statement. "No matter which party or coalition of parties takes the helm, they will have to do something about the super-sized second chamber."
