Welsh Lib Dems are short of peers and the Lords is weighted towards London and the South East of England

It's not just Shropshire's curlews who are facing extinction. Professor Russell Deacon, author of history of the Liberal and Liberal Democrat parties in Wales, has told Nation Cymru:

"The Liberal Democrats are a federal party with equality meant to be spread between England, Wales and Scotland but this seems to have been forgotten and in the House of Lords it’s very much an English Party!

"Not long ago there were six Welsh peers from Wales representing the Liberal Democrats; after the next general election because they can no longer attend after the age of 80 they will become extinct. This does not bode well for the future of Liberalism in Wales."

Welsh Liberal Democrats, says the news website are angry because for the 13th year running, none of them have been nominated for seats in the House of Lords.

And it points out that:

The Welsh Liberal Democrats currently have four members of the House of Lords: Baroness Christine Humphreys, who is 79; Lord Martin Thomas, who is 89; Lord Mike German, who is 81, and Lord Roger Roberts, who is 90.

A Lib Dem source is quoted as pointing out that we had no new appointments at all to the House of Lords between mid-2015 and mid-2024. This is true, but our problem of having a lack of Welsh peers remains.

The House of Lords is now a baroque institution with a huge unelected membership, and new members are as likely to be appointed as a consolation for political failure as they are for achieving eminence in their field. It belongs in Imperial China or Ruritania but not in a 21st-century democracy.

And it's membership is not equally drawn from across the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. In 2023 the House of Lords Library published a research paper breaking down its membership.

Looking at the nations, the percentage of Lords' members from each was:

England                  85.4

Scotland                   7.7

Wales                       4.1

Northern Ireland       2.6

Overseas                 0.2

And for the English regions it was:

London                                  24.2

South East                            20.8

East of England                    11.1

South West                            8.4

Yorkshire and the Humber     5.8

East Midlands                        4.3

North West                             4.3

West Midlands                       3.6

North East                              3.0

Once again, the UK is revealed to be wholly overcentralised, something which having London as its political, economic and cultural capital makes inevitable. Electing a second chamber from the nations and regions would at least ensure they had fair representation in it.