Conservative MP Nick de Bois put an apparently appealing case on Lords reform at the weekend – yes, let’s get rid of hereditaries, but hey, let’s not rush:
Lords reform should not be rushed.
Appealing that is, if you’ve missed out on the last century.
Because not only is it a century since further Lords reform was first promised by a government, but in the interim that have been proposals, debates and schemes aplenty.
Of course there are some hotly contested points in any reform of the House of Lords. But those who say, ‘let’s not rush’ really need to answer this question: “What would a delay of a few more years provide that a delay of a century hasn’t?”
Prevaricating for longer won’t make those contested points go away, nor will it make them clearer or easier. It will just let more time pass. It’s noticeable that the calls for delay are never accompanied by specifics: what is it that needs more time to think about which hasn’t already been thought about for years?
Saying we should not rush an issue that has barely started being debated often has much to commend it; saying we should not rush an issue that’s already had a century of debate is either foolish or deliberately obstructive.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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8 Comments
Having caved on so many issues that really matter to the public, it would be bizarre if the coalition foundered on something irrelevant to the vast majority, including I suspect a majority of members too.
I’m frankly astonished that the negotiating team nodded through tuition fee increases whilst securing these “victories” on constitutional reform – did nobody imagine we would get punished over such a massive U turn? If not, why not?
I applaud the job the Lords has done in tempering the NHS legislation, and I frankly doubt that an elected chamber of party list place men would have done as good a job.
Redndead
+1
Why does anyone think this is important when the future of the party is at stake over much more important things?
As part of a constitutional settlement, The House of Lords should become the fully elected Federal Parliament, while the House of Commons becomes the English Parliament, shorn of its Scottish, Welsh and Irish MPs.
Lords reform does matter and people do care about it – 2000+ public submissions to the Joint Committee and 3000+ to the one in early 2000s show that. If you’re comparing it against more emotive and everyday things like food and jobs then people will say it’s not as important. But if we always prioritised those things over reform we wouldn’t have any democracy at all. All legislation and policies are built on the foundation of democracy, if that foundation in unsound then everything else, no matter how appealing, is worthless.
WWI, Universal Suffrage, The Great Depression, WWII, The Welfare State, mass nationalisation, Suez, Rock n Roll, The Baby Boomers, the Space Race, mass privatisation, The Cold War starting and ending… all these things and more have happened since we were this close to getting an elected Lords. Those that oppose change, those that have a personal interest in perverting democracy, will always find higher priorities. That shouldn’t stop us doing what is right even it isn’t the most pressing issue. The economy will sort itself out eventually as it’s in everyone’s interest that it will. However it’s not in some people’s personal interest for the Lords to be reformed. We must defeat those self-interests opposed to change now or we never will for at least another 100 years.
So we ignore 100,000s of people opposing NHS and tuition fees, but take notice of 3000 anoraks bothered about reform.
In the scheme of things, Lords reform is not universal suffrage or creation of the welfare state or anything significant at all. After all the commons can use the parliament act to overturn lords decisions if necessary.
The Tories are mindlessly obsessed with fox hunting, this risks becoming the LD equivalent
Unless we are talking about spending priorities, saying “Other things are more important.” is the argument of choice for those who have no real arguments.
@Redndead
Your false dichotomy aside, it’s not a simple matter of numbers but the merit of the argument. Plus have you considered that a PR elected Lords might be more likely to reject or substantially change the NHS and Welfare Reform Bills?
The Commons may indeed overturn the decisions made in the Lords – if they have the political time and energy to do so. But when they do not it means that an unelected body, appointed through party patronage maybe 20-30 years earlier, whose expertise is becoming ever more dated, has subverted the will of an elected body. It’s an affront to democracy and it’s been prevented from being reformed for more than 100 years by pure self-interest. Anyone who is excised by the self-interest in the NHS reforms should be equally excised at any dominance of self-interest in those institutions responsible for crafting legislation.
It’s not just a topic that Liberal Democrats care about – many Labour MPs (e.g. Graham Allen MP, Paul Blomfield MP ) and – mostly newer – Conservative MPs support reform. Cross-party and apolitical organisations such as Unlock Democracy (representing a great many people) have been working for years to progress reform.
Universal Suffrage may now seem like an obviously more important topic but you could have advanced similar arguments against it at the time- “We don’t need give women the vote now – it’s not as important as in 1832 when we abolished those rotten boroughs… “. The not-as-important-as-something-in-the-past argument against change holds even less merit than the not-as-important-as-something-I-care-more-about-regardless-of-merit argument.
Redndead – the irony is that the negotiating team DIDN’T nod through tuition fees increase! There was nothing in the Coalition agreement even mentioning rises in fees – it just awaited the Browne report and then said a lot of worthy things would need to be considered like access, quality of teaching etc etc. Why the LDs then became enthusiastic champions of an increase is still a mystery – apart, of course, from the fact that some of the leadership always believed in higher fees anyway. On Lords reform, it’s not either/or – it quite simply needs sorting out in a modern democracy. As Mark says, it’s been promised for a century – including in 1911 by the Tories (though admittedly principally as a device for avoiding immediate removal of veto)