Since the publication of the Government’s White Paper and Draft Bill on House of Lords reform, the old guard have lined up to cavil about its detail, to deride its democratic principles and to defend – in the last ditch – the status quo.
This has augmented the popular media’s predisposition towards arch cynicism and trenchant pessimism. Yet there is firm evidence to contradict their lazy assumptions. Just because Labour engaged in over a decade of dither and delay does not mean that a determined government, with the resolve of the House of Commons behind it, cannot succeed.
The Coalition Cabinet – both parties – is firmly behind the proposals, and the likes of Theresa May and Liam Fox have come out in force to speak up in their favour. Meanwhile senior Conservative figures in the Cabinet have always believed in reform: Ken Clarke and George Young (with whom I co-authored a report on reform ‘Breaking the Deadlock’ in 2005) are just two. Both George Osborne and David Cameron voted for an 80% elected House in 2007. No wonder the Prime Minister says, “I think that Parliament as a whole will be increased in terms of authority and respect. It is right to insert into the House of Lords some elected peers, so that we recognise that in the modern world, it is right to have two Chambers that are predominantly elected. That is the policy of the Government…to achieve what was in every manifesto: elections to the House of Lords”.
Even the recent debate in the House of Lords was not as bad as some of them have been. Of course, the self-satisfied arrogance of those who will not acknowledge the fatal weaknesses of the present House did dominate. It always will. But the perennial advocates of ‘expertise’ (much more chimerical in the Lords than many people realise, anyway) do not have a monopoly on wisdom. Former Labour Ministers Joyce Quin and Larry Whitty eschewed the divided, opportunistic line of their front bench to make passionate, cogent speeches in support of reform.
New Conservative recruit, and Tory Leader on Richmond Council, Nick True, questioned “the prevailing assumption that a committee of seven or nine people, chosen from the ranks of the great and good, should be charged by statute for all time with controlling the peopling of a whole House of Parliament.” He continued, “I cannot accept as readily as some that it is axiomatically wrong that 40 million people should have a say in who might come to this House, while it is right that seven people should determine in secret who comes and why”.
And in summing up the debate our own Tom McNally did a magnificent demolition job on those who would stand intractably in the way of reform. “it takes the breath away, he said, “when speaker after speaker, all of whom have been sent here for life, start lecturing us about the dangers of somebody being sent here for a limited 15-year term.”
A few days later the House of Commons debated reform. That morning, two articles appeared in the national press, one by Paddy Ashdown (see Times, 27th June: paywall) and one which I co-authored with a passionate pro-reformer in the Labour Party, Andrew Adonis. In the chamber, excellent Liberal Democrat speeches from Mark Williams, Dan Rogerson and Duncan Hames, supporting the case Nick Clegg made for reform were by no means the only positive signs. Would-be Labour Leader David Miliband said “The fundamental issue at stake is whether a stronger, more assertive, more legitimate House of Lords will be good for the governance of the country, not just in democratic theory, but in real life and practice. I believe that it would. I am a believer in strong government. I also believe that a strong governments get stronger and better when they are more accountable to a strong legislature…That is a recipe not for gridlock but for better government.”
Even Labour front-bencher Chris Bryant put his partisan disdain aside to support reform. The Conservative Party itself – unbeknown, I venture, to many of its own members – has been committed to a substantially elected Lords since its 2001 manifesto. Perhaps it’s little wonder then that recently elected Conservative MPs Thérèse Coffey and Laura Sandys made thoughtful speeches, advancing the cause of full democracy in our Parliament.
Perhaps the most notable Conservative of all is Mark Harper, the Minister responsible (save for the Deputy Prime Minister himself) for taking the legislation and the reform programme through. He is bright, well-briefed and articulate in equal measure and dealt with all the questions of detail brilliantly, while putting the remaining Commons dinosaurs in their place.
All in all, though the Labour Party is hopelessly divided (see an extraordinary spat between Sir Stuart Bell and his frontbench), and there are detractors in both other parties too, the political weather for progress is set fairer than at any point since the passing of the 1911 Parliament Act. So don’t listen to the doomsayers. A new chapter in this long story has begun, ending the decades-long hunt for an elusive, all-encompassing consensus. The Government’s solution may not delight any one single person in the reform movement, but it should please everybody who believes that the time has come to bring down the curtain on heredity and patronage as a source for seats in Parliament. It is time for merit and for mandates to have their day.
Paul Tyler is Liberal Democrat Constitutional Affairs Spokesperson in the Lords, and a former Shadow Leader of the House of Commons. Named links in the post above take you to the respective parliamentarians’ speeches on House of Lords reform during the 21st, 22nd and 27th of June 2011.
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8 Comments
“when speaker after speaker, all of whom have been sent here for life, start lecturing us about the dangers of somebody being sent here for a limited 15-year term.”
Just because most of us don’t believe they should be there does not weaken their point. 15 years is far too long. The example I used on here the other day is that a voter just too young to vote in an election that puts a Sentator (and I hate that name!) into office will have to wait until they are 33 to have a say on their performance.
The other issue this article neatly sidesteps, or at least downplays, is just how much dissention there is in Lib Dem ranks in the Lords. We have always known both other main parties are divided on the issue (or it would have been resolved previously). I am a bit disgusted that those claiming to represent the party that has been consistant in it’s message on Lords reform have accepted peerages whilst holding the opposite view.
The reforms need to be right, I would like to see 100% of those who can vote elected with a small number of ex-officio members allowed to contribute to debates in which they have specialist or relevant knowledge. But the term needs to be shorter……
I am reasonably content with the proposal insomuch as the Lords 2.0 should not challenge the primacy of the Commons.
All the announced characteristics of the reform work to minimise any democratic mandate which a reformed Lords might use to legitimise its temerity:
1. Single 15 year terms (not accountable)
2. 20% appointed (less democratic)
3. 300 members (less granular representation)
4. No direct constituency link (less certain mandate)
5. By having a rolling introduction of one third newly elected every
parliament, combined with the fifteen year terms, there will continue
thereafter to be only one third elected at each and every parliamentary
term. Therefore there will never be a case where the lords can claim a
national mandate from the people.
This, of course, is not to say that such a challenge isn’t inevitable regardless, nor too is it to suggest that they would be effective in their role as a revising chamber, but the threat to the supremacy of the Commons should be eminently manageable.
“The example I used on here the other day is that a voter just too young to vote in an election that puts a Sentator (and I hate that name!) into office will have to wait until they are 33 to have a say on their performance.”
I thought these were single 15 year terms so they wouldn’t get a say even then.
@Steve
Any given member of the new chamber will be elected for a one off term of 15 years. Afterwards they will be ineligible to stand again – this will mean that they don’t need to worry about toeing the party line in order to get re elected.
However, the chamber will be elected in thirds so a voter will be able to vote to change the composition of a third of the lords every five years. This means that the new chamber cannot claim to be more democratically legitimate than the commons and prevents cliques and voting blocks developing in the upper chamber as any block which forms will be shaken up every five years.
As Paddy Ashdown said, this is not about challenging the primacy of the commons, but challenging the supremacy of them. At the moment a government with a majority in the commons can do almost anything it wants – all the lords can do is delay and make some changes to minor details. As such, there doesn’t seem to be much point in the upper chamber as currently constituted.
OK accepted that they are single terms, but it is still too long. I would bet that a large number will be MP’s stepping down in their 50’s and 60’s who will still be party stooges. Also there is nothing wrong with the Lords representing the current will of the people as expressed at a true general election. Governments need to be able to make efficient progress and therefore having a Lords that has a totally different make up will lead to delays in legislation and wasted parliamentary time.
The other thing is that a single term senator is not democratically accountable, they are democratically selected (an improvement) but it is their parties chosen succesor who gets to pay the price for poor performance. I know lots of Labour voters, and not a few members, who felt they had elected a Labour PM in 1997 only to find out they had in fact got something that was in many areas right of centre. Imagine having no chance to change that for 15 years.
The same is true of those Lib Dem MP’s who broke their pledge. The electorate will rightly get chance to judge them and I suspect a proportion will withold their vote or go elsewhere. How do we judge Senators who lie to gain votes, unless they breach the law and trigger a recall we are stuck with them for 15 years. Where is the accountability ?
To my mind, revision, yes, delay and major change no. And above all else accountability to those that elect them, and that is only available via the ballot. Limit them to 3 terms of 5 years would be compromise.
The proposal should stand some chance as the phrase “miserable little compromise” seems more appropriate to this than AV for the Commons. I am astounded that that our Party is seeking to replace the Lords with a chamber that avoids being too democratic and representational in order to avoid challenging the authority of the unrepresentative House of Commons.
Only eighty per cent elected is pathetic. Regulations to save electors from making mistakes, such as electing someone for too long, are inappropriate. Fifteen year terms seem to go overboard in recognising the value of stability and experience but this is shattered by the blatantly ageist restriction to one term. The small number of seats available at any single election divided amongst even very large constituencies will have the disadvantages of STV, and the whiff of Lib Dem deluded self interest.
There was an opportunity to add democracy to Parliament, recognising the real role and power of political parties, achieving the representation of diversity in political opinions, and saving individual constituencies from the careerist nature of modern politics. Instead the new house would be even more ineffectual and obscure than the Lords. “Would” because even this will probably be defeated by the authoritarian and collectivist self-interest of the Labour and Conservative Parties.
Many thanks for all the interesting comments. I thought I would respond on a few of the points made.
First, on the length of terms, I agree that 15 years seem a long period on initial consideration, not least since the longest-term in other comparable second chambers is seven years, in France. They recently reduced that from nine.
However, it is important when we look at the White Paper to remember that the genesis of these proposals is not, and cannot be (if they are to have any chance of enactment), Lib Dem policy papers. The single, long-term idea is one which has grown up over more than a decade of cross-party discussion, and is one of the key elements of the package which persuades those who are particularly worried about undermining the primacy of the Commons. As Liberals, we are less concerned generally about ‘gridlock’ and more about checks and balance. Less exercised by ‘independence’ and more by accountability. But in this endeavour we have to accept some compromise to make progress.
I do not agree that an 80% elected chamber would be ‘pathetic’. As Nick Clegg regularly points out, if we achieve 80% that will be 80 percentage points more than the zero-elected achieved under Labour. This reform is unlikely to be the end of the story; even democratic second chambers around the world attract controversy (particularly where they do their job well, and frustrate governments), and ours will be no different. It may be that once we have 80%, people will ask why not 100%. Once we have single 15 year terms, people may ask why they can’t re-elect Senator Jeremy Davis at the end of his term, and shorter, renewable terms may be achievable. For now, 80% and long, single terms are a compromise between the chamber we would design if writing a British constitution from scratch and the status quo. 80% is better than 0% and 15 year elected terms are better than life-long appointed ones.
Finally, there is the matter of Lib Dem dissent in the Lords. I don’t want to sidestep or underplay this, because certainly there are a number of my colleagues who are more sceptical about an elected Lords than I am. However, this has been exaggerated in the media, particularly by The Times. The survey they sent round was filled in disproportionately by those who are unhappy about the government’s plans, while those who support reform saw The Times mischief-making for what it was and declined to return the questionnaire. This is usually a good policy – since such fishing exercises are never there to help us – but in this instance it unduly skewed the results of their ‘research’.
I’ll look back here to respond again later in the week.