Last week The Yorkshire Post published an article by William Wallace on “House of Lords plays vital role in democracy but needs reform“. William is our spokesperson for the Cabinet in the House of Lords.
In the article he writes:
The House of Lords is indefensible in its current form. But it plays a vital role in our executive-dominated democracy.
Formally, the UK has parliamentary sovereignty. But when one party has a secure parliamentary majority, government proposals usually sail through the Commons without careful examination. A former Conservative Lord Chancellor once described British democracy as ‘elective dictatorship’ – when his own party was in government. The Lords is the chamber that examines bills and regulations in detail, forces ministers to justify them clause by clause, and quietly wins concessions before they become law.
He lays down this challenge:
Are you a democrat or a supporter of strong government?
If you are a democrat, you have to support reform of the Commons as well as the Lords, and tackle the weakness of local and regional representation as well. If you believe in strong government, beware that governments without parliamentary challenge become authoritarian and corrupt, and take note that billions of pounds have been handed out to large consultancies and outsourcing companies this year without open contracts, that many of these companies contribute to Conservative funds, and that retiring ministers are offered large sums to advise them.
William Wallace illustrates his point by referring to the way in which the Internal Market Bill is being pushed through Parliament, and concludes:
Yes, the current composition of the Lords is indefensible.
Yes, it’s too large; the House had negotiated an understanding that new appointments to each of the groups would be held down to one for every two that resigned or died, but Boris Johnson’s long list of new peers has destroyed that aim.
Yes, while 500-550 peers work hard on committees and Bills there are others who rarely appear or come in only to pick up their allowance.
It desperately needs reform – like much else in the UK’s central and local structures of government. But if you care about limited, constitutional government, the foundation for any open democracy, the Lords plays an essential role.
* Mary Reid is a contributing editor on Lib Dem Voice. She was a councillor in Kingston upon Thames, where she is still very active with the local party, and is the Hon President of Kingston Lib Dems.
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9 Comments
The House of Lords in its present form and composition is about as logical as the US Senate. Both require urgent reform. I would replace the House of Lords with a Senate, whose members were either elected or appointed for a fixed term. In a Federal UK that rôle could be undertaken on a proportional basis by the ‘nations’. We don’t have a Federal UK and aren’t likely too any time soon. So, why not give the job to decide the membership to the NI, Welsh and Scottish Parliaments and a body of MPs at Westminster representing exclusively English Constituencies?
John Marriott: Not chosen by MPs at Westminster, please! Not one chamber choosing members of the other. LibDem proposals under the Coalition government were for single 15-year terms, elected in thirds on a regional PR basis – which would provide for continuity with gradual turnover, a different electoral basis to the Commons, and a federal dimension in regional and national representation.
William:
I have never understood what the thinking was behind single 15 year terms. To me it simply means that good people may have to go, but useless (or worse) members fester unaccountably.
Were you able to make sense of this provision?
@William Wallace
My reasoning, prefaced by the assertion that we do NOT have a truly Federal UK, is based on the German model, where the Federal Second Chamber, the Bundesrat, is composed of members nominated, not elected, by the parliaments of the sixteen ‘Länder’.
I do not want to introduce another election for the majority to ignore, which would probably happen in your scheme. If you have read any other of my posts on federalism, you will know that I want to reduce the layers of governance, by completing the task of restructuring local government by abolishing the remaining District and County Councils in England and replacing them with Unitary Councils, while retaining Town and Parish Councils, so that all the ‘nations’ of the U.K. have the same layers of governance. As for England, I would go for six or seven regional assemblies, with the Westminster Parliament becoming a Federal Parliament like Germany’s ‘Bundestag’.
Martin: Bear in mind that proposals like that emerge out of compromises among different preferences! Argument for a single term is that lack of prospect of standing again would free ‘senators’ from concern about maintaining to much party loyalty to ensure re-nomination – so making for a less partisan 2nd Chamber. Argument for 15 years comes from wanting to turn over by 1/3rds, and having 5-year gaps between each partial election. John Marriott: I’m for a federal outcome, too, but I’m also concerned to re-establish strong local government.
@William Wallace
“Strong local government”? You bet. So, how do you get it? Not by going down the path of appointing/electing the English equivalent of ‘Gauleiter’ aka Metro Mayors or perpetuating County and District Councils and tossing them the odd bone to scrap over.
You need to give them the tools to finish the job – where have we heard that before? – and back off and let them make their own mistakes, upon which local people can pass judgement via the ballot box. There IS talent amongst the council chambers and offices up and down the country. I sometimes wonder how much talent there really is at Westminster or indeed how many practitioners actually cut their teeth in local government as used to be the case (think of the Chamberlains or Attlee, to give two examples).
The issues are transparency, accountability and democracy. How many peers inform their electorate on their work in the House? None because they have no electorate. So the first step is to make it a totally elected Chamber. Without that there will be little space for accountability.
Thank you William, so, in this compromise, it was intentional that ‘senators’ should not be democratically accountable !? Nevertheless, I can see that an institutionally partisan second chamber is an important issue, though this proposal ran the risk of entrenching partisan lines whilst losing accountability (worst of both issues).
Incidentally, has anyone ever proposed having a proportion of non-voting, unelected acknowledged experts, mandated to speak and be questioned on topics related to their expertise?
Peter Hirst:
Let us at least acknowledge that William Wallace and Tony Greaves (- example a few days ago) do make an effort to explain and account for their work publicly. Nevertheless, I take your point, they have no formal electorate. Despite this by clearly representing a Liberal Democrat standpoint, they speak for a significant sector of the electorate.