Whatever happened to the Interim Peers List? (part 2)

So, we know what happened to the original 1999 list. i.e. nine of them got peerages. That doesn't sound very impressive, until you look at the number of Liberal Democrat peerages created in the five years.

In fact, 22 Liberal Democrats were ennobled, nine in 2000, five in 2001 (the Dissolution Honours List) and eight more in 2004. The 2000 list included seven from the list, Jamie, Earl of Mar and Kellie (a recycled hereditary who returned as Baron Erskine of Alloa Tower) and John Roper (who now sits as a non-aligned peer due to his current role as the Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees).

The 2001 list, Paddy Ashdown, Ronnie Fearn, Richard Livsey, Robert Maclennan and Rae Michie, was limited to retiring MPs, and so falls outside the scope of the list.

It was the 2004 cohort where the list began to be overlooked. David Alliance, Hugh Dykes, Kishwer Falkner, Tim Garden, Julia Neuberger and Ian Vallance were, admittedly the sort of candidates who, for various reasons, were unlikely to have contested the 1999 election, and it would have to be said that most of them had made significant contributions to society that might have caused them to be ennobled anyway. There were two more drawn from the list though - Roger Roberts and Jane Bonham-Carter - just in time to be able to avoid having to contest another election.

So, seventeen peerages granted, nine from the list. But then, it was time to elect a new, slightly shorter list...