Analysis: Lords reform
Getting rid of house peers is one thing. Getting rid of an appointed Lords altogether looks like being quite another.
It’s nearly 100 years since the Parliament Act noted the importance of eventually moving towards an all-elected second house. The government brought out its third white paper on the issue earlier this week, sparking another round of debate on what to do with the south end of the Palace of Westminster. Fortunately for the refuseniks not much looks like getting done, despite the chattering.
Anticipation had been higher than usual before the white paper’s publication. Fifteen months ago the Commons saw a majority of 113 backing a fully elected house, with a majority of 38 for an 80 per cent elected chamber. A week later the Lords resoundingly rejected proposals for change by 361 votes to 121. The result: promises from Jack Straw that the government would push on with its proposals, and the prospect of a constitutional clash between the two houses.
Cross-party talks ensued which sought to thrash out the issues involved in securing reform. According to Mr Straw they were “productive”. The Conservative leader of the opposition in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, is quoted in Hansard as lamenting that “many peers felt excluded” from the process. Each party has found itself divided and debate has been suppressed for the simply reason it would not be a very pretty sight.
The issues at stake form a series of thorny dilemmas. The argument for a democratically elected chamber is forceful; it would provide a check on the Commons and create additional limits on the powers of the government.
But it would also mean Britain’s parliament would lose a number of important advantages held by having an entirely appointed second chamber.
Opponents of the government’s policy suggest that whether the Lords support the government or not, parliament as an arena for public debate would be damaged.
If the Lords were to be dominated by the same party as controls the Commons, there would be little point having a second chamber at all. If the Lords opposes the Commons, however, conflict between the two houses could potentially prevent the elected government from meeting its manifesto commitments – eroding Britain’s democracy.
The white paper rejects this. It says that the primacy of the Commons is not based on elections but on other factors. The prime minister and senior Cabinet ministers are taken from the Commons, which makes it superior. The Commons’ financial privilege pushes it above the Lords. And, crucially, the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949 establish its clear supremacy over the upper house. These “mechanisms”, as the white paper calls them, give the Commons the upper hand regardless of whether the Lords is elected or not. It even means arguments for restricting the “assertiveness” of an elected Lords are irrelevant. “There is no persuasive case for reducing the powers of the second chamber,” the paper concludes.
Then comes the huge list of question-marks which underlines just how uncertain and tentative this week’s white paper actually is. There is the problem of how to elect future Lords. First past the post? Alternative vote, or single transferable vote? Or perhaps some sort of open or semi-open list system?
What about sorting out accountability? And eligibility? Finally – and here the breadth of the problems really becomes clear – what would the new upper house be called? Certainly not the House of Lords, as membership would not be directly linked to peerages. The Senate, perhaps? Not everyone is happy with that.
In short, the white paper seems to pose more questions than it answers. The government is doing its best to move the issue on – but is that enough?
Reaction to the white paper so far comes close to unanimity, at least publicly, between the key party spokespersons. The Liberal Democrats’ Simon Hughes says the 100-year goal of completing the work begun in 1911 is realistic. Shadow justice secretary Nick Herbert seeks to find chinks of dissent, over the ‘Senate’ tag and the unsettled electoral question, but is broadly sympathetic. All this is hugely welcome to the impatient Unlock Democracy group, whose director Peter Facey at least welcomes the white paper “as yet another nail in the coffin of the existing, largely unreformed and wholly illegitimate second chamber”.
Those who are bitterly opposed to change remain, however. Leading the diehards is Gerald Kaufman, whose parliamentary put-down remains a classic of its genre. Speaking on Lords reform, he said: “May I congratulate my honourable friend. on producing a masterpiece of imprecision, vacillation and obfuscation which cannot possibly lead to meaningful legislation – a consequence entirely to be desired.”
Unfortunately for his supporters, as Mr Facey points out, all that is lacking for change to occur is the “political will” to push ahead. This will not now happen before the next election. As the white paper explains, the government has “long held” its view that final proposals would have to be included in a general election manifesto. That would “ensure that the electorate ultimately decide the form and role of the second chamber”. For now, at least, the tortuous march towards reform continues at its crawling pace.
Perhaps it’s best to leave the last word to Vernon Bogdanor of Brasnose College, Oxford.
“It’s competition from the second chamber that’s the issue,” he told politics.co.uk. “An elected second chamber is bound to be a legitimate second chamber, whatever its powers.” That is the central headache about Lords reform. Professor Bogdanor seemed somewhat resigned over the issue, telling us he does not want to go beyond the comments of his February 2007 article in the Sunday Telegraph on the last paper. A quick glance reveals why.
“The white paper fails to grapple with the central problem facing upper houses in modern democracies,” he wrote. “It is that of discovering a principle of representation alternative to that embodied in the lower house.
“It is not easy to discover any alternative principle of representation to that of the representation of individuals.”
The problems, it seems, are not going away in a hurry. Neither are the Lords.
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