House of Lords reform
Some time ago the government started to reform the House of Lords by doing away with hereditary peers. Since then no obvious progress has been made, bogged down, mostly, by a lack of vision about what to turn the Lords into.Suggestions range from a fully elected house to a fully appointed house. My own view is that both these extremes are wrong. Here's why...
Firstly, as usual, we need to think about what we're trying to achieve. The Lords has an important role in current politics, It is the revising chamber, responsible for assessing legislation and amending it. Since many Lords have great experience in politics and law, and many other walks of life their expertise here means that impractical or ill-advised legislation can be adjusted before it is passed.
On the other hand however, the Lords is an appointed or herediary body. Over 90 Lords represent the hereditary peers even after the 1999 reforms. To many people this presents a democratic deficit, and they advocate an elected second chamber. There is also an issue that while the Church of England is well represented in a multicultural England Muslims, Jews and other faiths are not represented at all. Nor are agnostics or atheists explicitly.
So, the question we need to answer is how do we retain the function of the Lords while removing some of the current flaws.
For the Lords to function its members must have a depth of experience. Government touches on many areas of life, and so the Lords needs to have experience in those many walks of life. So my suggestion is this, various professional organisations, such as the BMA, various unions, Police forces, architects, the military, scientists, educators, various religious groups and so on should each elect amongst themselves a small number of people to enter the Lords. At the moment the Church effectively does this already - archbishops and bishops already sit in the house, but only for as long as they hold that office. I suggest that the various professional bodies elect Lords every five years or so, or perhaps for 15 years, but reelecting one 3rd every five years to give a less abrupt transition.
This would ensure that bills coming from the commons could be examined by people who had relevant experience in the various departments that would be affected. It would be a meritocracy - ensuring that we get the most capable people in government (and I note here that many Lords are very highly skilled, something an elected house might lose). At the moment there are a large number of cross bench Lords who are not affilliated to any party, but bring great wisdom. My scheme would enhance this, whereas most other suggestions would weaken it, and this would be a tragic loss.
I see no benefit in having to houses both elected by the same mechanism. They exist to do different jobs, and so different mechanisms to appoint members doesn't seem inappropriate.
Posted 22/07/2006
Comments
Re: House of Lords reform
I read your House of Lords reform article with interest, but consider your analysis wooly minded. Why do believe that only appointed members are invested with wisdom and knowledge? Ideas about the competency of members of the House of Lords are not relevant. The point is that the current arrangement is undemocratic and a smack in the face for people who truly believe in democratic accountability. In other western democracies, such as the United States and France for example, an elected second chamber poses no constitutional threat to the main legislative body. I favour a fully elected second chamber, much reduced in size and whose members would be known as Senators or some similar title and who would be only able to sit for two consecutive terms.
Re: House of Lords reform
Richard, glad to get some debate on this :-). Although I have no idea what you consider wooly - or why. What part of my analysis do you think is unsupported?
I'm not advocating appointed Lords, I'm advocating elected Lords, but elected by various professional bodies. If you look at the qualifications of many cross bench Peers at the moment and compare that to the qualifications of the members of the commons I think you'll see that the Lords are often much better qualified. I think it would be a great shame to lose that from whatever we replace the Lords with. But I also think that the current system of appointments leads to cronyism. As it stands the Lords has a very strong cross bench component - that is without any party affiliation, and I think that's a good thing since it provides expertise without political colouring.
I don't think there needs to be a problem with democratic accountability. The commons, in my model, would be the group that had the power, and the Lords would provide deep expertise which they would use to refine ideas from the commons. But since the power would remain in the commons that provides the democratic accountability.
Having the Lords elected by the same mechanism would just lead us to having more politicians, and frankly, who needs that! I don't see the point of another chamber just like the one we have. I think they should have distinct roles and be formulated accordingly.
As for the two term limit, I'm all for that for the PM, not sure why it's so important for the Lords, although I wouldn't argue against it really. The only issue is it takes a while for people to learn enough to be effective and it would be a shame to chuck people out before they could actually do anything useful. But exactly how many years that would be is up for grabs.
I'm not advocating appointed Lords, I'm advocating elected Lords, but elected by various professional bodies. If you look at the qualifications of many cross bench Peers at the moment and compare that to the qualifications of the members of the commons I think you'll see that the Lords are often much better qualified. I think it would be a great shame to lose that from whatever we replace the Lords with. But I also think that the current system of appointments leads to cronyism. As it stands the Lords has a very strong cross bench component - that is without any party affiliation, and I think that's a good thing since it provides expertise without political colouring.
I don't think there needs to be a problem with democratic accountability. The commons, in my model, would be the group that had the power, and the Lords would provide deep expertise which they would use to refine ideas from the commons. But since the power would remain in the commons that provides the democratic accountability.
Having the Lords elected by the same mechanism would just lead us to having more politicians, and frankly, who needs that! I don't see the point of another chamber just like the one we have. I think they should have distinct roles and be formulated accordingly.
As for the two term limit, I'm all for that for the PM, not sure why it's so important for the Lords, although I wouldn't argue against it really. The only issue is it takes a while for people to learn enough to be effective and it would be a shame to chuck people out before they could actually do anything useful. But exactly how many years that would be is up for grabs.
Posted 31/10/2006 by Peter Bagnall •
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Re: House of Lords reform
The elected House of Commons fails, in practice, to reflect perfectly the views of the voters who elected it -- here is an article outlining some of the reasons for this democratic deficit. In itself this is not surprising, but the Lords Reform Institute is concerned that any reformed House of Lords does not simply mirror the democratic deficits present in the House of Commons. For example, various suggestions for the House of Lords involve some kind of proportional representation. The most straightforward PR system, however, where electors vote for a party and each party is awarded a number of seats proportional to its vote, suffers strongly from this problem, as it puts all the power over who sits in the House in the hands of the parties, which in practice means of the party leadership. This is likely, if anything, to exacerbate the democratic deficit that already exists in the Commons.
The current House of Lords can be criticised because it lacks "legitimacy" -- it does not speak for the people of the country, and its views may not bear any relation to those of people at large. An elected house would of course have a democratic mandate, but it may have the opposite problem of too much legitimacy. The problem arises when the two Houses of Parliament cannot agree about a new law. Normally all new law must be agreed by both Houses, but if there is complete deadlock the Commons has priority. It can even pass laws without the Lords' approval. Since the Commons is the elected house, it's proper that the unelected Lords should eventually give way in such cases. But what if both houses were elected? The Lords might look just as legitimate as the Commons, and the "primacy of the Commons" would look harder to defend. The problem could be particularly acute if the Lords were elected by PR, when they might well consider themselves ''more'' legitimate than the Commons.
The current House of Lords can be criticised because it lacks "legitimacy" -- it does not speak for the people of the country, and its views may not bear any relation to those of people at large. An elected house would of course have a democratic mandate, but it may have the opposite problem of too much legitimacy. The problem arises when the two Houses of Parliament cannot agree about a new law. Normally all new law must be agreed by both Houses, but if there is complete deadlock the Commons has priority. It can even pass laws without the Lords' approval. Since the Commons is the elected house, it's proper that the unelected Lords should eventually give way in such cases. But what if both houses were elected? The Lords might look just as legitimate as the Commons, and the "primacy of the Commons" would look harder to defend. The problem could be particularly acute if the Lords were elected by PR, when they might well consider themselves ''more'' legitimate than the Commons.
Posted 19/03/2007 by hi •
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Re: House of Lords reform
I'd be very interested to see the article you mention, could you send me the link?
I absolutely agree that making the Lords more party political would give the parties even more power, and I can't see how that would be a good thing. That's part of the motivation for my formulation - it is not linked to parties at all.
I think PR would be an improvement over what we have for election of the Commons, and indeed the Government implicitly agrees with this, since it has introduced PR for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. That said, I agree entirely that having two houses which are competeing with each other is pointless. They do, and should, perform different roles. The Lords should be advisory, the Commons more executive.
However, I'm not sure I quite agree that it can have too much legitimacy. I see your point about it causing problems with the interaction between the two houses, but the cure should be to increase the legitimacy of the Commons, not limit the legitimacy of the Lords.
Not only do we need Lords reform, we also need Commons reform, but that's a topic for another article.
I absolutely agree that making the Lords more party political would give the parties even more power, and I can't see how that would be a good thing. That's part of the motivation for my formulation - it is not linked to parties at all.
I think PR would be an improvement over what we have for election of the Commons, and indeed the Government implicitly agrees with this, since it has introduced PR for the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly. That said, I agree entirely that having two houses which are competeing with each other is pointless. They do, and should, perform different roles. The Lords should be advisory, the Commons more executive.
However, I'm not sure I quite agree that it can have too much legitimacy. I see your point about it causing problems with the interaction between the two houses, but the cure should be to increase the legitimacy of the Commons, not limit the legitimacy of the Lords.
Not only do we need Lords reform, we also need Commons reform, but that's a topic for another article.
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