Overdue Reform of the House of Lords
Talk about reforming the House of Lords has been going on for many decades but in 2011 a cross-party draft bill proposed 300 members, 80% elected and 20% appointed. The bill was dropped in 2012, and there has been no political commitment to implement such a major change to its constitution since then.
Currently, Keir Starmer is legislating to remove those left in 1999 when hereditary lords were removed, leaving 92 of them to remain “until further reform is proposed”. However, Starmer is claiming that future Lords reform will take place step by step, as yet undefined, so in theory the remaining lords should be safe until that further reform happens!
Most agree a change is needed, but to what? A Senate with Senators? An Upper House? If most of them are going to be elected, maybe members should be called Counsellors as they will be ‘advising’ (and voting) on the legislation going through Parliament, but certainly not Lords, as that harps back to the aristocracy.
Nor would there be any more life peerages for the party hacks and cronies who pack the Lords currently. Elections and appointments would be for a term of 3 to 5 years, maybe not all taking place at the same time, to ensure a degree of continuity. Those who had genuine expertise could apply for any of the appointed positions, not judged politically by any of the parties, but independently. Or they could stand for election in whichever Region they had their principal residence, but not from other homes, work locations, or land ownership.
Recent talk has been suggesting a reduction to around half the present numbers, perhaps with a maximum of 400 to ensure sufficient to deal with the legislation coming through the Commons. 75% of these would be elected, the balance appointed. The elected Regional allocation would be based on the last EU distribution for UK MEPs, and adjusted by the current distribution determined by the 2023 Review of UK constituencies set out below:
Region EU MEPs 2023 MPs Allocation
E Midlands 5 47 21
Eastern 7 61 28
London 8 75 35
North East 3 27 13
North West 8 73 34
South East 10 91 43
South West 6 58 26
W Midlands 7 57 26
Yorkshire etc 6 54 25
Scotland 6 57 26
Wales 4 32 15
N Ireland 3 18 8
Total: 73 650 300
If the Lords Spiritual were also reduced from 26 to 12, representing not just the CofE but representatives of UK religions based on their proportionate affiliation, this would be fairer as part of the appointed 100. 94% of those responding to the 2021 Census contributed to that optional question, and Christian affiliation fell to 46%, the first time it was below 50%.
Assuming that representation would be agreed, a possible division of the 12 could be:
Catholics: 3; Church of England: 3; Islam: 2; Methodist, Baptist and URC: 1;
Church of Scotland and other denominations: 1; Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist: 1;
Jew, Humanist and other religions: 1.
Of the remaining 88 appointments covering areas of government responsibility, these could be divided into 11 areas of expertise to advise elected members on aspects of the legislation being considered. It would help to ensure important issues were not overlooked. Each area has been allocated 8 people, but this could be adjusted based on an estimate of the future workload of each, with some being increased and others reduced in the 100.
Treasury, Finance & Economy; Health, Social Care & Benefits;
Environment, Energy & Climate; Food, Farming & Rural Affairs;
Constitutional Affairs & Justice; Local Government & Built Environment;
Education, Equalities & Rights; Business, Trade, Work & Skills
Science, Innovation & Technology; Defence, Foreign Affairs & EU;
International Development.
These are initial suggestions open to debate, but the last thing is to have another Royal Commission or Independent Review to put off a decision for several years, and at the end of that time fail to take action to implement any of the recommendations. It should not be left to Keir Starmer who has gone back on so many other promises since he became the Leader of the Labour Party, and now the Prime Minister of a very fragile landslide victory. His ‘veto’ on electoral reform against the majority of his members, unions and public is an example of this, and does nothing to restore trust in politicians, or growth in the economy!
* David Murray is a Lib Dem activist and ex-councillor. He joined the party in1966, and was elected to Cambridge City Council as the only Liberal councillor in 1970, a year when the party nationally was reduced to six MPs. Yet he is still optimistic for the future!
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35 Comments
Just abolish it.
Replace with elected second chamber.
We shouldn’t be reforming the House of Lords.
We should be abolishing it and replacing it with a parliament for England (or multiple ones for the English Regions if you prefer) in a proper Federal system.
And it was shameful that our MPs abstained en masse (a couple of honourable exceptions) on the vote to take the bishops out of the House of Lords.
It is perhaps worth reminding ourselves of the Conference motion passed in the autumn of 2021 “A Framework for England in a Federal UK” and which is therefore Party policy.https://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/motions/autumn-2021/f21
This motion called for “The replacement of the House of Lords with an elected Senate of the federal UK Parliament which will represent the federal states of the UK.”
It also called for “Individual regions within England to be federal states, with a constitutional standing equivalent to that of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, with England remaining as a single legal jurisdiction and some common functions being managed at an all-England level.”
Blimey, what a complicated mess, if I may be blunt. I’m sorry, but trying to apportion Lords Spiritual in a way that reflects some supposed distribution of faiths in the UK and also setting aside some arbitary number of “areas of expertise” is just not rational. It takes no time at all for someone to say “but what about [this] area of expertise that you’ve omitted from the list”, at which point it loses any credibility. There is no place for “a finite set of special interest cultural groups” in the form of religions within Parliament, as that in itself perpetuates the notion that faith is somehow more important an aspect of individuals’ lives and sense of worth/place than other aspects of culture and society. And please, where is the exhaustive list of religions and how “silly” does a religion have to be before it does not merit a seat?
Any arbitrary apportioning of seats to particular groups is a recipe for disaster. We either have a fully elected chamber or an indirectly elected chamber (like the German Bundesrat, in which the First Minister of Scotland, for example, would
A bit was missing off the end of the above, sorry.
“First Minister of Scotland for example, would be a member of the Upper House, as would other elected parliamentarians from Wales, the English regions and NI”.
John Kelly is right to mention that policy from 2021 (what he and I wrote). What Lib Dems need to do is not simply call for a federal UK, however, as that is a long-term, difficult goal.
What we need is to propose a model for an Upper House constituted in a way that makes sense in the context of the current unitary state but also in the context of a future federal UK. Such a thing would allow for an easier transition at a later date. It does, of course, rely on creating a proper tier of regional government across all of England. Such a tier would not need to receive all of the same powers that Holyrood enjoys from the outset – the structural reforms needs to precede the level of decentralisation, and remember that Holyrood’s powers increased since its inception.
The first part of the article sets out an allocation of members based on the previous EU regions – this is a sensible start. I challenge anyone to suggest that if we started regionalising England afresh, with a widespread consultation and overarching coordinated plan, the end result would be much different from those nine regions. But that’s by and by.
A Senate would really just have to be an elected or indirectly chamber with no arbitrary expertise groups or special interest groups. Nobody will buy into any arbitrary stuff like that. It would probably need to have degressively proportional representation to favour the smaller nations/regions (as do the German Bundesrat, Canadian Senate and even more so, the US Senate) because a Senate isn’t there to represent the people (that is the job of the lower house) but instead represents geopolitical units and respects their interests within the union.
Either way, a Senate is pretty much like Gordon Brown’s “chamber of the nations and regions”. It’s just a shame Gordon Brown was too scared to use the word federal.
In the last year or two, various Lib Dems have casually mentioned the party’s older policy for an “elected replacement for the Lords”. I pointed out at Conference recently that this isn’t necessarily in line with a federal UK as per the policy passed in 2021 because a Senate could be indirectly rather than directly elected. Why haven’t we as a party sorted out what we actually want, yet?
What makes anybody think the First Minister of Scotland would want to attend the House of Lords, and equally this applies to Wales and Northern Ireland.
David – because if we chose to implement that form of Senate, as opposed to an appointed or directly elected Senate, then that would jolly well be the First Minister’s job. What’s more, they would be protecting Scotland’s interest in the Union. If we had a German model, the Scottish members of the Senate could be delegated by the Scottish government as opposed to being directly elected, but normally the members are the First Minister and as many cabinet members as required to complete the representation.
If the Senate, like the Bundesrat, is involved in any legislation particularly that could affect certain member states, it would be a funny state of affairs for the First Minister of Scotland not to be interested in such constitutional matters.
If the Senate were, like the Lords, a revising chamber for /all/ legislation, the dynamics would be different.
I always think it’s impressive and interesting when someone offers a detailed proposal for public policy, even when I disagree with elements of it, so on that aspect of this post David, I salute you. I’m inclined to be wary of mandated religious representation, not least because I’m a disestablishmentarian. The problem is the conflation of proportionality of identity with representation, especially on something as personal as faith or its absence. For what it’s worth, I like the idea of a chamber elected in the same way that list MSPs are in Scotland, proportionately with a compensatory measure to balance against seats winning the commons, but for the whole country rather than regionally. That if course assumes we keep FPTP – in an STV world, it’s a bit different
*seats won in the Commons
(Apologies)
I’d prefer to see university constituencies, similar to those in the Seanad in Ireland, or rather, the higher education constituency that will finally replace them, than any religious representation.
While the Seanad is supposed to be based on vocational panels – Administrative, Agricultural, Cultural and Educational, Industrial and Commercial, Labour, and nominated by relevant organisations, in reality, it tends to be party political nominees, often people who’ve lost their seat in the Dáil or have failed to get elected to it.
I wouldn’t want an elected ‘Senate’ in the UK being used merely as a springboard to the Commons, or consolation prize for not getting elected an MP – while there have been cases of ministers appointed to the Lords after losing their seat in the Commons, ennoblement seems to put them off seeking election again.
David Cameron being made a peer by Rishi Sunak in order to become Foreign Secretary illustrates the need for ministers to be able to appear before either house of Parliament – while this is commonplace in continental European countries with bicameral systems, it also exists in some small Westminster-style parliamentary democracies like Lesotho:
76. Right of Ministers, Assistant Ministers and the
Attorney-General to address either House, etc.,
1. A Minister or an Assistant Minister who is a member of the National Assembly
shall be entitled to attend all meetings of the Senate and to take part in all
proceedings thereof but he shall not be regarded as a member of, or be entitled
to vote on any question before, the Senate; and a Minister or an Assistant
Minister who is a Senator shall be entitled to attend all meetings of the National
Assembly and to take part in all proceedings thereof but he shall not be regarded
as a member of, or be entitled to vote on any question before, the National
Assembly.
2. The Attorney-General shall be entitled to attend the National Assembly or the
Senate and to take part in the proceedings of either House of Parliament but he
shall not be entitled to vote on any question before the National Assembly or
the Senate.
On the other hand, two-thirds of Senators are ‘Principal Chiefs’, effectively hereditary peers, the other third appointed on their recommendation, the very system we’ve been trying to move away from!
Apologies for the formatting – really wish we could edit posts on here!
I suppose the rationale for allowing ministers to address either house of Parliament in a small country is just that, it’s small, meaning it’s less practical to apply the same rules as a larger one, where appointments like that of David Cameron are less commonplace.
The danger in having an Upper House elected by STV (or any other form of PR), even if it is done by region and nation within the UK, is that it will – in the arguments used by the Establishment – remove the need for proper electoral reform where it is most desperately needed, i.e. in the House of Commons. What you are suggesting for a fully-elected Upper House is exactly what we do need to replace the Commons, not the revising chamber! Perhaps we should then replace the Lords by single-member constituencies (elected using AV)?
The optimum political solution to House of Lords reform is already available and on file. As set out in my letter in Wednesday’s “Guardian”, the 2007 UCL School of Government Report deals with the critical issues, including the key relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. It was written by a three-party group of senior MPs – Ken Clarke and Sir George Young (Conservative), Robin Cook and Tony Wright (Labour) and Paul Tyler (Liberal Democrat). 28 other MPs from the three parties are listed as supporting it.
The report recommends STV elections in regions, with members elected for one long non-renewable term. Within its 53 pages the Report even includes a draft parliamentary bill. So – look no further! The final draft of the Report is available on line at:
https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&opi=89978449&url=https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/sites/constitution-unit/files/119_0.pdf&ved=2ahUKEwiKwOeAqtmKAxViWEEAHTNUH5sQFnoECBEQAQ&usg=AOvVaw1LBeSfZmywbQ2OutjkPz4M
I have to say I think replacement of an unelected revising chamber by a second elected chamber would be a mistake. I do not think a second elected chamber would improve Britain’s (currently fragile) system of checks and balances. The second chamber needs to have less (party) politics, not more, if legislation and policy is to be revised rather than rubber stamped or simply blocked. There is too much danger of entrenching a tyranny of the majority, or indeed a tyranny of (party) politicians.
Consider also the quality and liberality of decisions made merely by reference to a “democratic mandate”. Consider Brexit. Consider the election of Trump and the power unchecked power arising from his democratic mandate and his party’s control of the US elected institutions. A tyranny of the majority is still a tyranny for the minority.
Unchecked democracy is flawed. A liberal democracy must have institutions in place that are able to check and resist a tyranny of the majority.
A subsidiary unelected chamber where membership is limited to single a long term seems much better than a chamber where party politics and getting elected informs almost every aspect of “debate” and policy making.
I like the idea of appointment of a second chamber by an independent body. I would have the second chamber’s primary duty as upholding human rights and the integrity of the constitution , and its second as improving legislation. It must always come second to the elected chamber.
” I do not think a second elected chamber would improve Britain’s (currently fragile) system of checks and balances. The second chamber needs to have less (party) politics, not more, if legislation and policy is to be revised rather than rubber stamped or simply blocked. ”
Seconded
I also agree with Tristan Ward that we don’t simply want a 2nd chamber that merely duplicates the party politics of the Commons. I think any meaningful reform of the house of Lords needs to start with decisions about what the HoL is for. Personally, I would favour its role being to scrutinise/amend legislation and scrutinise/act as a check on Government as a non-party-political body of professionals and experts. That would suggest membership should be by appointment/election from a wide range of professional bodies. So perhaps we should consider a system in which professional organisations, trades unions, business organisations, churches, charities, scientific organisations, universities, etc. elect members of the House of Lords?
Alternatively, if you wanted to keep the HoL democratic and elected by the entire population rather than appointed, perhaps an alternative would be to have universal franchise, but with constituencies based on interest groups rather than geographical areas: So for example, a ‘scientists’ constituency, a ‘farmers’ constituency, a ‘retired people’ constituency, and some system by which each voter can choose which constituency they wish to and are qualified to vote in. Candidates could only stand if they show they have suitable qualifications/experience for the constituency they are standing in – for example, you could only stand for the ‘farmers’ constituency if you have actually worked in agriculture, or in the ‘retired people’ constituency if you are actually retired, etc. Maybe that way you could have universal suffrage and at the same time ensure the people elected are experts representative of society rather than party-politicians.
“I like the idea of appointment of a second chamber by an independent body” That just transfers the party politics to who gets on the independent body. I think the idea of a long single term as in the UCL report is the best defense against excessive influence of party whips and individuals building a platform for higher office. Membership should also disqualify you for election to the Commons.
The composition of a reformed HOL will depend on its functions. If the opportunity was taken to also reform the structure of the HOC, some of the vital scrutiny functions of Bills could be transferred to it (HOC). It would then be easier for the HOL to be a voice of the people and its compostiion and elections be decided by deliberative democracy.
@Peter Davies
“That just transfers the party politics to who gets on the independent body.”
I agree, and something I would have mentioned had there not been the 250 word limit on comments here. One possible solution is automatic appointment of people holding certain positions – eg leaders of Unions of a certain size, leaders of religious institutions, chairmen/women of FT100 companies, chancellors of universities, leaders of professional bodies like the General Medical Council and so on. There would probably be a place for former Prime Ministers/Chancellors/Foreign Secretaries. The question as I see it is how to get “wise” men and women into the place so they can “advise encourage and warn” on disinterested basis.
Catholic canon law discourages and restricts members of the clergy from holding secular, civil or political office, so you can forget the RC representation for a start; this was discussed back in the Blair era.
I certainly would not like to see the House of Lords become a ‘Convention of Vested Interests’ as Simon R and Tristan Ward seem to be proposing….
“perhaps with a maximum of 400 to ensure sufficient to deal with the legislation coming through the Commons. ”
A number plucked out of the air with no logical basis.
If we look at what the HoL is actually doing, namely scrutinizing proposed legislation that the HoC can’t for various reasons be bothered to properly scrutinize and debate, we see that it is struggling under its workload. So perhaps instead of cutting the numbers of members we should be enlarging it and changing the way it works: and taking advantage of modern communications technology…
The House of Commons should be doing more of its own scrutiny. That ought to be what we elect politicians for. The answer to insufficient scrutiny isn’t to elect a second set of politicians, which, in the worst case would make the Lords a carbon copy of the Commons. The answer is to reduce the workload of the Commons and have better and more time for scrutiny. This means decentralising the UK – giving regions of England all the powers that Holyrood has. As I’ve stated above, this is what Lib Dem policy is.
By freeing the Commons of the burden of micromanaging the lives of people across England, we also eliminate part of the need for an Upper House that has to scrutinise everything the Commons does, and the remit of that Upper House can be different – as I said, it would complement the Commons (representing the people as a whole) by representing geopolitical subunits of the UK.
Peter Hirst seems to have the most original idea for House of Lords reform. Only Scotland and to a lesser extent Wales seem to have any enthusiasm for separate regional or national legislative institutions and it seems likely that Northern Ireland will soon leave the United Kingdom to become part of a United Ireland possibly with its own regional Assembly to give the Unionists some reassurance.
Previous proposals for Lords reform have been rather complex and may have caused their abandonment. Interest in the issue is not great but there seems to be a dislike of the House of Lords and the House of Commons so a simple uncomplicated reform would be the replacement of the Lords ( will it soon be the only entirely appointed Second Chamber in the democratic world ?) with a National Assembly elected entirely by proportional representation and with equal status to the Commons which could then retain its undemocratic electoral system and deal with local matters so beloved (?) by the members. Such a change could increase interest and support for the proposer.
A federal UK with regional parliaments would lead to chaos. Keep the House of Lords as it is but with no hereditary peers and no bishops. Peers to be appointed for a fixed term by the Prime Minister; Leader of the Opposition and the House of Commons as a whole. 400 to 500 peers in all, to be removed if the attendance falls below a minimum requirement.
>” Peers to be appointed for a fixed term by…”
Could do joined up government and have local councils appointing representatives from amoung their ranks. Providing a means for members of the HoL to have some level of local accountability.
Don’t see a problem, given the number of MPs that are/have been serving councillors.
It would also have some benefit in that central government would be less able to enact daft policies that place responsibility (ie. Costs) on local councils, without also providing additional central government funding. I suspect if local voices had been better represented in Westminster, we would not be in the daft situation of unsustainable levels of immigration and thus a shortage of housing etc. among other daft central government dictacts…
Ambighter, exactly what chaos? What ‘chaos’ is there in the USA, Germany, Canada, etc, where there are powerful states within a federal country? How could having more symmetric decentralisation of powers – unlike the current situation in which Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all have different degrees of power, all of which are greater than anything England or its regions and counties have – result in an *increase* in choas?
Example of chaos in USA – Abortion laws, Federal and State conflict.
The House of Lords is a revising chamber for acts of Parliament so outside the area of expertise of local councillors.
That isn’t exactly ‘chaos’. Public health and morality are competences that belong to the states not the federal government, and that is that, as it stands now. It’s no more ‘chaos’ than having different tax rates, different speed limits, different rules on gun-carrying, etc, in different states. One may as well argue that it’s ‘chaotic’ that Welsh people speak Welsh rather than English or that the Scottish legal system wasn’t abolished and replaced by the English one in 1707. Abortion is extremely important to women as a fundamental right of bodily autonomy but the fact that many states are full of regressive conservatives isn’t a function of the USA being a federal union. The USA *could* amend its constitution to guarantee such rights nationally, but again, it’s full of regressive conservatives, whichever states they happen to reside in.
Reform of the House of Lords will never happen unless there is a majority for it in the House of Commons which is prepared to enact it whether the Conservatives and their allies like it or not. It has to be a simple measure which is clear and can attract public support. A National Assembly elected by proportional representation would be popular. All the other proposals are tinkering and would simply confuse the issue. They should be left for another occasion if still considered necessary.