With Britain battling both a pandemic and an economic crisis, and bracing itself for the chaos of a no or thin deal Brexit, introducing the idea of Lords reform sounds, at best, out of touch, and, at worst, misguided.
Recent events however suggest that we can no longer afford to ignore it.
First was Lord Kilclooney’s offensive tweet referring to Kamala Harris as “the Indian”. It was enough that it was racist and misogynistic. Pretending that he simply could not remember her name when a Google search would have revealed it in less time than it took for him to write the tweet tells us that it was a calculated move. We already know that black and Asian political candidates face the brunt of online abuse. In July this year Dawn Butler MP closed her constituency office in part because of bricks thrown through the windows, and threats against her and her staff. In this context, the impact of the tweet is a chilling effect on democratic engagement: you are not welcome. The Commissioner for Standards has proved incapable of enforcing any behavioural standard, with Lucy Scott-Moncrieff responding to News Letter on 12th November 2020 that “[I]n this instance, Lord Kilclooney’s conduct on Twitter does not fall within the scope of the Code and it is outside my power to investigate”.
Second was the Conservative peer David Freud’s involvement with five Conservative MPs in a letter to senior judges seeking to influence the decision of Mrs Justice Whipple, the judge tasked with ruling on whether the references made in Charlie Elphicke’s criminal trial could be made public. The secretary to the Lord Chief Justice, the head of the judiciary in England and Wales, responded that it was improper to “seek to influence a judge in a private letter and do so without regard for the separation of powers or the independence of the judiciary”. The matter has been referred to the Commissioner for Standards by Helen Hayes MP.
These incidents have taken place in the context of a Prime Minister content to ignore both the recommendations of the Burns committee to reduce the size of the House of Lords, and his predecessor’s agreement to exercise restraint in the creation of life peers. While May restricted herself to creating 43 life peers, Johnson has already appointed 36. As well as coming under fire for appointing his friends and allies, the impact of such a sizeable majority of Conservative peers is to weaken the chamber’s power to conduct effective parliamentary oversight.
In an unelected chamber, it is crucial for the Commissioner for Standards to assume the role that the discipline of the ballot box would otherwise fulfil. Lord Maginnis’ suspension on Monday for bullying and harassment following an investigation by the Commissioner is a welcome development, but the fact that the suspension relied on a vote in the Lords again raises a question of independence.
More than that, we need to ask ourselves who we want making the rules. A legislature shaped by patronage or relevant experience? Numbers that allow for rubber stamping of the Commons or effective scrutiny? Anyone in doubt as to the real risk of the degradation of the Lords, and, in turn, the quality of our democracy should look to the recent report of the National Audit Office that the government favoured its own contacts in the awarding of millions of pounds worth of coronavirus contracts. We have been warned.
* Victoria Lee a member of the Wycombe Liberal Democrats and was a candidate in the Buckinghamshire unitary election until that election was cancelled earlier this year.
Follow @libdemvoice.org on Bluesky
Like us on Facebook
Subscribe to our feed
Sign-up for our daily email digest
Brechtian television: Leo McKern in Galileo (1964)
Good news on political donations?
Conference booked
Are Labour going to cross another red line?
Tristan Ward
Joey Vimsante
Nick Baird
Tara Foster
Sarah
17 Comments
I’m just reading the latest biography of Sir Edward Grey, in which he urges reform of the House of Lords to become a chamber based on elected regional representation – in 1910. Liberals have supported this change for over a century. Tories have resisted it, and Labour has been ambivalent. The half-reform of 1997-9 was intended by Labour and Liberal Democrats to be the first stage in moving towards a wholly or mainly-elected house. But Labour in office was wary of creating a 2nd chamber that might be more influential and beyond its control, so let the issue slide; and Tories resist all moves to more open democracy. We will keep pushing!
I am a man of few words.
Abolish it. Create an elective Senate of 100 and no more.
This moderate and sensible piece is better as a result of that as it is not thoughtless knee jerk reaction.
The Lords should retain a quantity of unelected non highly party political Peers.
Why have more ambitious greasy pole types?
We need a House of experts and humanitarians.
More Lords Winston and Attenboroughs and Rixes and Benjamins!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Lorenzo: my long-held impression of peers on all benches is that many of the hardest-working and most expert are former Council leaders from across the UK, who understand the details of implementing domestic legislation at the local level on a wide range of issues. Kath Pinnock, John Shipley, Mike Storey, Dorothy Thornhill, Tony Greaves are outstanding examples on our benches; and now, of course, there are former members of the devolved assemblies who bring similar experience.
I agree, an elected House where those with life skills, and commitment to a better world, have a chance to play a part in government.
@William Wallace: add Paul Scriven, Cathy Bakewell, Sue Miller, Sally Hamwee (not a Council leader per se but lots of other stuff such as Chair of London Assembly), Dave Goddard, Barbara Janke, Ros Scott (I think she was a deputy leader), Graham Tope, Phil Willis…and loads more former Councillors who held important positions…It’s not surprising we often take the lead on local government related stuff in the Lords.
Change HoL into a British parliament with equal membership between nations, turn Westminster into an English parliament and have devolution for thirds of England too.
Lord Wallace
William, good points, and I am sure both you are correct and I am correct, more fine councillors, yes, and more fine professionals, like i refer to.
What we can all agree on is less please, cronies and favourites of pms!!!!!!!!
@Theakes
What do you think your proposed Senate’s purpose should be and how should it fulfil its purpose?
Only then can it be decided how many members are needed to do the job properly.
Helen
Your point as often, very significant, my concern is, if only elected, it may then become only party political types who have often, in my generation, the clegg age group, or younger, been “advisers” , wonks, not out in the world struggling and trying, as have i, and many, who really want to serve and have skills to but are not in the inner circle.
I stood for this party for council, but , if some have their way, and bring in a system of only those who are parliamentary candidates, then i am pushed aside, or many like me, with real experience, valid knowledge, in favour of ambitious and favoured candidates. cronies to candidates, misses all the terrific peers i allude to.
Lord rix did more good in public life than many mps!
I tend to agree with ‘theakes’.
Why have an elected second chamber? Make it like the Bundesrat in Germany, where members are nominated by the Länder, in our case, by the nations and English regions?
In answer to ‘Nonconformistradical’ this second chamber would scrutinise primary legislation by the U.K. Federal Parliament at Westminster, whose remit, as would that of the Federal Government, operating with a Written Constitution, be limited to areas such as Defence of the Realm, Economic Planning, Foreign Affairs and Environmental Protection.
Having an elected chamber would certainly give it a form of democratic legitimacy it does not currently have and would ward against the kind of attack George Osborne made against it when the House voted to place a pause on cuts to tax credits.
In the meantime, the recommendations of the Burns committee; to reduce the numbers to 600 and limit membership to a 15 year term seem very modest. Do you agree?
I fully agree that there are members who, by bringing their considerable experience to the discussion of policy issues, make a valuable contribution to public life. However, their work is undermined by the impunity afforded to Lord Kilclooney. There must be an effective system in place to enforce high standards of behaviour.
The Third Report of the Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House (8 July 2019) on progress to reduce numbers made clear that as a non-statutory scheme, the proposals can only succeed with the Prime Minister’s support. This currently seems to be lacking. His disregard for convention and good governance, whether in proroguing parliament unlawfully or awarding PPE contracts or life peerages demonstrates that we need a rules based system in place for the appointment of future peers.
Agree in principle, but wonder if this is the right order. At the moment, the House of Lords seems an oasis of balance, competence and good sense compared with our nutty Commons. It is more urgent to get a better system of electing the Commons, and with more sanity there, sort out the anomalies of the Lords before de Pfeffel corrupts it further.
The sins of two aged Ulstermen should be sorted out by procedures, if necessary improved. Certain MPs behave no worse.
If we were to have an elected House of Lords, the method of election ought not to be essentially the same as that for the House of Commons: it ought not to be based on geographically defined constituencies at all. There are two reasons for this, and they relate to voting attitudes. Voters will not be greatly interested in electing more-of-the-same. Change in the Lords would be exciting and refreshing, and needs to look it and to be so. Trudging along to Polling booths and getting two ballot-papers, looking much the same, but one of them based on a bundle of local Parliamentary constituencies, would be a serious dampener of the potential enthusiasm of voters newly but boringly further enfranchised. The second is that more-of-the-same goes further than that: the candidates themselves, under such a system, will be all too likely to look and to be much the same as those for the Commons — excellent as M.P.s, no doubt; but one such House is enough.
The alternative I propose [above]avoids these dangers, and embodies several strong advantages. The electing constituencies should be based on commonality of interest, not of residential locality. The W.I., the RIBA, the Army, the FA, the BMA, the Road Hauliers, the various religious faiths, prisoners, the universities, pensioners — all such congregations united by a common interest — and each of them an important organic element of the British community — should elect its own ‘Lord’. Of course there will be haggling and wrangling about numbers (of groups or constituencies, and of members), but that will sort itself out. Each group would choose its own method of election, as it does already for its President, or Chairman, or Manager, etc.; and quite possibly its own election date — one feature of the old hereditary House was that new members appeared in a slow trickle, as they succeeded their fathers, not all of a sudden, like the Commons.
Under such a system voters would (rightly, surely ?) feel that they had a much greater personal stake and interest in the election, and that it was a welcome departure, very often, from the ‘party politics’ that has earned itself such an unpopular name. The ‘Lords’ thus elected would bring the confidence of their electors — and this would be based largely on the wisdom and expertise they had demonstrated in their field, and the consequent esteem of their peers. Of course, many of today’s Lords may have been elevated for the same reasons; but under my proposal not one of them would carry the taint of having perhaps been chosen as someone’s ‘crony’.
[Continuation from above]
Some would doubtless argue that it is undemocratic that some individuals should have more votes than others. I would maintain that they had earned this right, by virtue of their contribution to the vitality of the nation’s life, whether as paid up members of a football club, or of a profession — or of both, of course. There ought also, I suppose, to be a Lord elected by those who make no such contribution by way of group membership, for they may be a substantial number of our compatriots, with interests that should not go unrepresented.
Finally, I believe my proposed scheme would produce an upper House that was both more democratic than anything proposed so far, and much less party-political. To voters, if not to politicians, both these features would be positive merits. One of the most plausible of the merits claimed for the unreformed House of Lords was that it was composed of members who need owe no allegiance and who could afford to think and act independently: another was that, not necessarily being professional politicians, many could and did bring particular knowledge and experience of diverse fields. My system embodies both these merits. Admittedly, each ‘lord’ would owe allegiance to his constituency interest — football or medicine, as it might be — but these interests, unlike parties, would be so numerous and diverse that such allegiances would not congeal into two or three great biddable lumps.
Lorenzo Cherin. I think like many other’s, I have been shocked by the crony attitudes that exist today. It’s only what matters to some, that takes president.
I believe we do have to make the House of Lords, a place where honesty, law and Justice rules.
There will be many this year who struggle to put food on their table, and make this time of year so special for their children and families. Even get the medical treatment, they badly need. They could be losing their homes.
Twenty million, was given to someone for nothing in return.
I don’t always end up on a Christmas Card list, because, I like to say things as they are.
I heard yesterday about a London Synagogue helping to give children something, a gift. Another Synagogue, saying how they accept the plight of others outside the Community.
I would give to those who need, that’s the important point.
We need a better system, there are some very good member’s, of the House of Lords as you say. Fair and caring to all views.