We shouldn’t have to make Mandelson a Lord

Peter Mandelson is to take his seat in the House of Lords on Monday following his surprise return to the cabinet.

But for one week he held the job of Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform without having a seat in either the Commons or the Lords. He was presumably allowed to take the job by the rule-keepers because he is a member of the Privy Council.

Many traditionalists will say that the constitutional anomaly will be corrected once Mandelson is made a peer and the Business Sectary can be held to proper account. But scrutiny of ministers in Parliament is becoming increasingly lax. PMQs is a merry-go-round of insults, planted questions and parried queries. If a barb has particular force or an argument an accurate ring it sticks and can affect the public’s view of the government. But this is rare.

In a statement to the Commons in 2001, Speaker Michael Martin even admitted he could not make ministers give straight answers to MPs questions: “It would be unwise for me to express a view on the adequacy of a particular ministerial answer”.