Trial of our Peers - The Case for Lords Reform

“...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation.”

This text appeared in the preamble to the 1911 Parliament Act, meaning that it has now been a century since the desire to implement a more democratic upper chamber appeared on the statute books.

In British politics, there are three ‘centres of power’: the House of Commons, the House of Lords and the Monarchy. May 2011 saw the attempt to change the electoral system for electing our representatives to the Commons defeated. Opinion among the progressive left was mixed on whether AV is genuinely a better voting system than FPTP, but largely the debate was irrelevant; AV represented not a paradigm shift, but a tinkering around the edges. What is worse, it was a reform to what is already the most democratic of the three power-centres.

Leaving the issue of the Monarchy for another day, and with the House of Commons already elected by direct universal suffrage, this leaves the red-cushioned Chamber. It is commonly perceived, at best, as a constitutional check-and-balance, but more often as merely a politicians’ graveyard, a place for the senile to talk at length about hobby-horses and a way for parties to reward loyalty to the whips.

A recent example of the ‘zaniness’ of the Upper Chamber is the speech given by Lord James of Blackheath on the 1^st of November 2010 where he began by giving his opinions on the 1947 Broadway musical Brigadoon, then gloated at his involvement in terminating over £1 billion of the IRAs funds during his employment with the Bank of England, before finally extrapolating at length over a mysterious ‘Foundation X’ who have offered to provide the UK with £22 billion ‘by Christmas if need be’. And all this in the middle of a debate about the then Spending Review! This is just one of many peculiar episodes and utterances which are regularly heard in the Lords.

In a long-standing custom dating back to the belief that the aristocracy can be trusted to behave nobly, courteously and with honour, the Lords is self-regulating. This is likely responsible for the meandering narratives and time-wasting which characterises much of the debate in the Lords. This may also be the reason for the increase in disruptions to its functioning of late, perfectly illustrated in the filibuster by Labour peers and the consequent threat of ‘guillotine’ earlier this year over the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill.

Some have argued that simply instituting a stricter code of conduct on the Lords would improve its functioning, and while no doubt it would increase efficiency, this would act to further reduce the independence of our already noticeably powerless second chamber. However, procedural changes alone will not account for a revitalised and productive legislature. At their best, upper chambers in bicameral systems offer increased accountability of the executive branch, more robust scrutiny of potentially flawed legislation and the ability to formally represent diverse constituencies.

In a UCL document (House Full) released in April of this year, it was reported that there have been 117 new peers created under Cameron in the 11 months following his election. This can be compared to an average of 12 new peers per year under Brown and 37 per year under Blair. Indeed, up to April, of the 71 new Lib Dem or Conservative peers, 64 had never voted against the government. If we believe that the separation of powers is desirable, and the 2009 creation of the Supreme Court in order to remove the Law Lords from the legislature suggests that we do, then this kind of executive branch interference in the composition of the upper chamber cannot be condoned. How can the Lords be genuinely independently-minded when it is so susceptible to the whims of the Prime Minister of the day?

As Tony Benn has commented in parliament, “every generation has done what it liked with the House of Lords”. There is a long history of the house making up the rules as it goes along and reforming itself as the situation has required it to do so. We should not shy away from reform out of any sense of ‘respect for tradition’ as it has been argued. On the contrary, the most traditional aspect of the Lords has been its adaptability; a willingness not to let conventions and protocols get in the way of good governance.

Ed Miliband has previously stated that on issues where there is agreement between the government and Labour, such as on prison reform, that he will support these proposals in parliament. This must be one of those issues: all three parties included a pledge in their manifestos to introduce either a partially or fully elected Upper Chamber, as did the Coalition Agreement. It would be detrimental to both the image and the core values of Labour if we were to oppose reform on purely party political lines, when so obviously the will is there for parliamentary reform.

Ideally then, we will see a paid, slightly smaller but proportionally representative and wholly elected second chamber, with slightly longer terms of office; perhaps six or nine years, elected by thirds. This body would thereby have the democratic mandate necessary to hold the lower chamber to account, while the regular, relatively frequent elections would ensure an accurate depiction of the will of the people at any given time. And as for the name, let’s just stick with ‘Lords’ for now.