During his first term of office, Blair created 203 life peers, whom the Conservatives referred to as "Tony's Cronies".[3] In 1999, William Hague, the Leader of the Conservative Party and the Leader of the Opposition, referred in the House of Commons to the House of Lords Bill, which would become the House of Lords Act 1999, as replacing the House of Lords with a "house of cronies."[4] When the bill was passed, it removed the rights of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords; they were replaced by life peers and the House of Lords was called "a chamber of Tony's Cronies", as a large number of life peers had been appointed by Blair to replace the hereditary peers.[5] However, while the bill was going through the Parliamentary stages, the Conservative hereditary peers voted through an amendment that an independent body, which became known as the House of Lords Appointments Commission, would be created to check all further nominations to the House of Lords. This was intended to prevent the Prime Minister from being able to create new life peers at will or on personal grounds.[6] It also made the provision for "people's peers" to be created, independent of political influence, which was viewed in the media as a way to balance against "Tony's Cronies".[7]
Despite the House of Lords Act removing a large amount of Conservative Peers, the Conservatives still held a majority in the House of Lords, leading Blair to appoint more and more peers; in 2004 alone he made 23 new appointments.[8] This came after Conservative peers sometimes voted with crossbenchers and Liberal Democrat peers against Labour's proposed legislation. It was also due to poor attendance from the Labour Party's working peers.[9] In 2005, Blair appointed 16 new life peers to the House of Lords, giving Labour their first ever majority in the House.[10] These regular appointments of new peers on apparent favouritism was criticized by the Scottish National Party's chief whip, Pete Wishart, as a "typical Establishment fix".