The attitude of former Liberal Party leader David Steel to Nick Clegg’s House of Lords reform proposals has been lukewarm at best. Although the party he headed up repeatedly called for a democratic upper house, Steel has not been supporting Nick Clegg’s attempt to turn those often made demands into policy. He even signed a cross-party letter against the proposals that was published the day of Clegg’s formal announcement.
Instead, Steel has been pursuing a different, much more modest, line – arguing that some modest reforms can be secured and they should be banked immediately as radical reform will take a long time and may well fail. The problem with Steel’s approach was starkly illustrated when his own limited Lords reform bill went off the rails during the week on what should be the least contentious of issues – finally removing the remaining hereditaries:
The Bill put forward by former Liberal leader David Steel, which would have prevented any new hereditary peers coming into the Lords, had gathered broad support. But a flurry of amendments forced the Bill’s sponsors to drop the key clause on the hereditary principle.
There are far too many peers who are not keen on even modest reform (let alone that radical modern idea of democracy and elections). Pre-emptive concession and ultra-moderation does not win them over.
Yet if you are going to have to force reform past the unelected hold-outs for their own special privileges, then it might as well be proper, comprehensive reform. The choice is no reform or major reform.
If the failure of Steel’s measure on hereditaries at least persuades people such as himself that there is no way of side-stepping that choice, then it will have achieved something worthwhile.
* Mark Pack is Party President and is the editor of Liberal Democrat Newswire.
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6 Comments
This seems to be a particularly short-sighted and indeed silly comment. The suggestion seems to be that any sensible interim reforms to the Lords should not take place because they might encourage people to reject the fundamental reform that is down the line.
Actually two important parts of David Steel’s Bill got through report stage and are likely to go to the Commons, and may well pass into law. They are to set up a retirement scheme for peers, which David reckons could reduce the size of the House from over 800 to around 650. Quite apart from that it is common sense to allow peers to retire (at the moment they can seek leave of absence for each session).
The other key proposal is to remove peers who have had a prison sentence of over a year. This will bring the House into line with the Commons.
The two parts that have not gone ahead (with David’s agreement) are setting up a statutory House of Lords appointments commission for all appointments, and abolishing hereditary peers’ by-elections. It may be thought that the second of these is a “least contentious proposal” but not in the Lords. The deal that the then Tory leader Lord Cranbourne did with Blair was precisely to keep 92 hereditaries in the Lords and to top up their number when one dies by means of a by-election – until such time the stage two reform took place. These may be a little-known and rather ludicrous part of the system but they were part of the deal and enough Tories/hereditaries were prepared to filibuster David’s Bill unless this provision was removed. This was therefore agreed in order to allow the two more important parts to go ahead. (The commission itself is more controversial than it sounds so long as there are peers appointed by the political parties).
So what we may well get are some sensible, modest reforms, supported by almost all LD peers, that in no way prejudge the outcome of the major reforms that are being proposed by the Deputy Prime Minister. I see no reason for this to be the reason for this scathing posting.
Tony Greaves
If, some might say when Clegg’s reform comes to naught, he may wish that he had used his once in a lifetime opportunity to achieve something more modest rather than glorious failure. He’s learned little from AV as far as its possible to tell.
Alistair: Depends of course on what you think the AV lesson is… but in the wake of the referendum result plenty of people were criticising Clegg for agreeing to a referendum on a modest level of electoral changes (AV rather than a more radically different system) which therefore didn’t get supporters enthused but by being any sort of change got opponents motivated. And on Lords reform? He’s sticking to pushing for a more radically different system – so rather than learning little from the AV referendum, he’s actually applying that lesson and not, for example, trying to compromise on a much milder set of reforms.
Always worth re-reading Roy Jenkins’ “Mr Balfour’s Poodle” to understand Lords’ approach to its own reform. Re-Tony Greaves’ comment, I think Mark Pack’s point is precisely that Lord Steel’s proposal ISN’T intended as an interim measure en route to Nick’s more radical reform, but as an alternative to it.
The AV lesson, if ever there were two, is that reform of the House of Commons is a very low priority for most voters (so how much less the Lords), and that our so-called Coalition allies will lose no opportunity to stab us in the front over it.
So, please, let us reserve the Party’s slender resources for more important issues.
(I speak as one who helped return one of the country’s local “YES” votes on AV , by the way, in Haringey ).
I agree with Mark Pack and Martin Pierce and not with Tony Greaves.
The House of Lords is an anachronism and a bastion of privilege. The fact that it is now appointed privilege rather than inherited privilege doesn’t make it any better. As to the inconvenience of the Lords being too big for comfort at the moment I can only say tough.
Listen out for the sound of the worlds smallest violin playing a sad song. Personally I think the appointed version should get much bigger if that is the only way to reform it to a democratic body I have no problems with the Government deciding to flood it with members in favour of reform.