Yesterday Conservative peer Norman Lamont was the latest in a sequence of Tory peers to take to the pages of ConservativeHome to argue against their own party’s policy and opposed elections to the House of Lords.
However, he is also an excellent example of why the Lords should be reformed, for he is just the sort of MP I had mind when writing a piece for Left Foot Forward last year:
The voters have cast their verdict and an MP is out of office. What should happen to them next? Most people’s answers to that are somewhere on the spectrum from the polite (let them tidy up their affairs and see their staff properly treated as their contracts end) through to answers best not to be repeated before the watershed.
But our political system has a remarkable answer. For a lucky group, the answer to being voted out of parliament is to say to them “now you’ve been voted out, you can have a seat in parliament for life instead”.
The way ex-MPs get recycled back into parliament courtesy of a seat in the House of Lords is often reported, but the democratic offensiveness of it is rarely commented on. Voted out? Have a seat for life.
I don’t begrudge the defeated politicians who take up the offer because, after all, if they say “no” then their own party usually cannot transfer the offer to another person. Moreover, some rescued defeated MPs of all parties have turned out to be great members of the Lords.
But it’s right up there with the duck houses in showing a political class out of touch with basic common-sense to think it is acceptable to stick with a system where defeat doesn’t mean defeat but means a seat for life instead.
Norman Lamont was voted out of by the public in 1997 and how did the political system respond? It ended up giving him a seat in Parliament for life instead.
It is not only that the Lords is not democratic, that way of behaving undermines the democracy of the Commons too.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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10 Comments
We have changed from a system where the descendents of the great and the good of medieval England have been replaced by an ad hoc system, so that the defeated favourite chum of a defeated Prime Minister is there instead.
madness..!
Obviously an elected system has got to be better, but given the option of a peer chosen by Henry VIII or Elizabeth I, or one chosen by Tony Blair, Brown or Cameron et al, I think my preference would be to go with the descendent chosen by the man with the six wives. At least there can be no accusations of ‘cash for honours’ or nepotism.
The sooner we have a proper voting system the better.
Couldn’t agree more. I still feel the current proposals are wrong (I would want a far shorter term for example), but I would take this over the current system any day…
I must disagree with Mark’s thesis here.
To serve as the nation’s Chancellor is a great distinction and the experience that comes with it should not to be entirely swept away by the vagaries of the political process. We may think some individuals to have been particularly poor office holders (Lamont being a prime example) but since such judgements are always going to be clouded by politics I for one prefer not to go there but rather leave it to each political party to find and promote the best people for its own long-term benefit. And of course the thing that irredeemably blotted Lamont’s copy book was presiding over Britain’s ejection from the ERM in 1992, In contrast, we Lib Dems have always stoutly argued against such European entanglements as the ERM and later Euro! Oh wait ….
Then there is the question of being voted out by the public …well, sort of. Lamont lost his original seat to a boundary change and was not successful in the new one into which he was parachuted. Fair enough, but to criticise someone for failing to get elected under an electoral system Lib Dems want to change because of its obvious shortcomings is a bit much.
Changing tack slightly, there seem to have been an inordinate number of posts on LDV recently about HoL reform. Will it really fundamentally transform our economy or indeed anything else? Or is it just Lib Dems talking to Lib Dems and a few journalists? Are the Party’s informal assets (e.g. not just Vince Cable) putting comparable effort into working out how to make the economy work better for the millions it is so patently failing (and I don’t mean work experience schemes)? And if this is happening in any useful way why are we not seeing it discussed in the press day by day? This would be water in the desert – and very controversial because it would mean tackling powerful vested interests.
Liberal Eye- Where have you been? Have you not seen Lib Dem comment on everything economical from restructuring the tax system to restructuring the banks? And from investment in growth to tackling youth unemployment?
The old argument that now is not the right time for constitutional reform because there are more pressing issues is the reason why our constitution has progressed so little for so long, and we are left with anachronisms like the House of Lords.
This makes the case again for a multi-cameral parliament instead of a bi-cameral parliament – the Lords is not the place for former MPs like Lamont, and if there should be a place it should certainly be both subordinate to the HoC and incapable of challenging for precedence.
Richard Church – actually I agree with you in large part. Restructuring the tax system and the banks are crucial. But I am more ambitious than that and think the scale of the problem is far bigger than these, necessary as they are. For a long time now the UK economy has been underperforming, saved only by a combination of North Sea oil (now fading), the City (now blown up) and inward investment (necessary because the domestic talent has so underperformed). This is a really BIG question but what is the answer? Most other economic problems – unemployment for instance – track back to this. Perhaps LDV could help elucidate some answers.
On HoL reform I am not arguing that this is not the right time, only that I am doubtful about its value. I know it’s a red rag to a bull for some but as a pragmatist I am more concerned that it works – which it does surprisingly well. I remain to be convinced that we have understood why it works and if we don’t we risk throwing out the baby with the bathwater. The US Senate is of course fully democratic but also immensely corrupt (as in endemic insider trading for instance) so it’s not as simple as democratic=good.
Back to Mark’s post, it occurs to me that Shirley WIlliams was rejected by the voters of Hertford & Stortford in 1979 and again by those of Crosby in 1983. We would all be very much poorer if she were not in the HoL.
I toally agree with Liberal Eye. I really can’t see the point of what is being proposed for the House of Lords. If people object to having an unelected HoL, why not just abolish it altogether? What exactly would be the benefit of having our elected representatives split over two houses, rather than one? A second elected chamber stuffed with party politicians could only ever be either (a) a completely useless rubber-stamping body, or (b) a source of chaos and deadlock such as happens in the US from time to time. Either way, it just seems a big waste of time and money.
Forgot to add: Pretty much every argument against the present HoL I read on LDV could be applied just as well (if not more so) to the monarchy. So why aren’t Lib Dems campaigning to replace the Queen with an elected head of state?
Yes. And he is different from Jenny Tonge how?
..and when will they get round to realising that anyone who has had a prison sentence is self-evidently unsuitable to serve in parliament.. ?? Disqualify, Disrobe and Dismiss the likes of ‘Lord’ Archer.!!