Andy Burnham is drawing up plans to appoint metro mayors to the House of Lords as a first step towards making the Upper Chamber more representative of the nations and regions it serves, allies of the incoming prime minister have told The i Paper.
According to multiple sources, Burnham will make an early announcement on further devolution reforms, with one option on the table being the appointment of indirectly elected mayors to the Lords on a cross-party basis.
The move would mark the beginning of what Burnham has long argued should be a wholesale overhaul of the Lords.
Shorts
He has previously backed turning the chamber into a Senate of Regions and Nations, a proposal that Sue Gray, the former senior civil servant and Sir Keir Starmer’s former chief of staff, is widely expected to work on in more detail.
