Year 13 – Parliamentary Reform
Focus – The House of Lords – where to now?
Class essay – written together via a debate. Arguments taken from three angles:
Fully elected?
Fully appointed?
A mixture of both?
There are many arguments to support the idea of a fully elected House of Lords. Since the Labour
Reforms of 1998, the HOL has removed all but 92 hereditary peers and replaced them with
appointed peers. The reforms appear to have stalled since then and there appears to be no
consensus on the way forward. Some of the major criticism of the House of Lords include that it is
corrupt and packed full of party supporters, it is undemocratic and unaccountable. It is full of old
people some of are too sick to attend or to carry out their duties e.g. Baroness Thatcher in her latter
years. It is also far too big, particularly as it is the ‘second chamber’ or ‘revising chamber’.
We would like to propose that a fully elected HOL is the best way forward for the following reasons:
A fully elected chamber would certainly give the Lords a mandate for initiating and amending
legislation. As this is one of the main functions of the Lords at present, it would certainly silence any
critics who feel that they currently have no right to be doing this. As they are not elected they are
criticised for being out of touch and unrepresentative. Therefore the only way to address this
democratic deficit is to have a fully elected chamber instead. This is certainly the preferred option
for the Liberal Democrats. Secondly, if the Lords was fully elected there would better representation
and a more diverse range of members. If we consider the models of representation, we could
further develop this by arguing that the Lords could perhaps become more of a mirror
representation of the UK population, rather than the trustee model that we have in the House of
Commons. In that way the House of Lords would have a very different identity to the Commons and
this would silence the critics who believe that a fully elected Lords would simple serve to undermine
the Commons. Furthermore, if we wanted to ensure a more representative second chamber (HOL)
then a different voting system could be used to ensure that we achieved a more representative
outcome with more women and minorities in place. This could not be guaranteed of course, but it
may be more likely to occur under PR and devolution has shown this to be true over the last few
years. Certainly the devolved areas of the UK show a greater percentage of women and minorities
than the Westminster parliament does. Thirdly, we believe that the expertise of the Lords would not
necessarily be lost if the Lords was elected as it is highly possible that many of the current peers
would be happy enough to run for election, and would be likely to retain their seats as the voters
would be reassured that they know what they are doing. Fourthly and perhaps most importantly,
the House of Lords would finally be accountable to the people and this would arguably make sure
that the people in it perform the functions of the second chamber more effectively. Last, but not
least, the House of Lords really does personify the traditional element of our constitution and in
many ways makes the political structure of the UK appear out of date. Whilst the traditions and
customs of Westminster have a certain charm of their own, they have no place in a modern
democracy and it is time for the UK to move on and address the glaring democratic deficit that it so
clearly accepts. To argue that ‘this is just the way it is’ seems to be defeatist and unambitious and
cannot be justified in this day and age.
Another option for the House of Lords would be to abandon all further reform and, after the death
of the remaining hereditary peers, keep the chamber fully appointed. The main arguments to
support this is that the HOL is presently very distinct from the House of Commons and it would be
best to keep it this way. There is also a high degree of voter apathy as it is and surely more elections
would just exacerbate this problem, in 2011, only 35% turned out for the AV referendum. Should we
push ahead and hold elections to the Lords anyway? Some would argue that to ignore public
opinion wold be costly and unnecessary, therefore we say that there is no call for an elected HOL.
Secondly, as we have an uncodified constitution, a newly elected chamber would need to be codified
and this would also be an unnecessary upheaval and then the arguments would begin over the
monarchy and whether that should also be abolished. On another related and more positive note,
the HOL symbolises the traditional element of the British Constitution and is what makes our
constitution unique and strong………it provides continuity and stability and to reorganise and abolish
the HOL and possibly the monarchy when there is no need to appears to be a change for changes
sake. Importantly, in terms of functions and performance the HOL is possibly more effective than it
has ever been. The older average of the Lords is reassuring, not a negative, and ¼ of members are
female. In terms of oversight and scrutiny of legislation, the HOL is an extremely busy and effective
chamber and the level of expertise in there has made it a robust and vital, the amendments to the
Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, being just one example of this. Since the formation of the
Coalition government since 2010, and the weakness of the Labour party in opposition, the Lords
have been even more robust in opposing the government. Furthermore, the debating function of
the Lords offers a good contrast to the Commons as it is more informed and less adversarial. The
votes are less whipped and the members are able to be more independent in their scrutiny, this is
demonstrated by the large amount of cross benchers.
Perhaps the most effective option for Lords reform would be a mixture of both elected and
appointed. That way, the legislature would provide the best of both expertise and representation.
There would be enough party loyalty to keep some form of ideological direction and yet they would
have a greater mandate as they would be representative in part and therefore more democratic. It
would not be a good idea, to have it fully elected because then it would be too political, too similar
to the Commons, there would be too much ping pong and maybe even gridlock. The loss of expertise
would mean that the bills would not be polished enough. In the same way, it would not be a good
idea to have it fully appointed as the public would still have no say and therefore it would not be
viewed positively. As it stands, the most significant development in the House of Lords over the last
15 years has been reform, other achievements are less visible. Although there are many that would
argue with this – using the examples of robust scrutiny that has taken place over the last few years.
In conclusion, it is easy to argue that at half elected and half appointed HOL would be the easiest
way to get consensus. This has been demonstrated by the fact that there has been no significant
change since 1997. The performance of the House of Lords is good, committee work is excellent and
there is a high level of legislative scrutiny. It is accountability that is the problem, and a half elected
solution would only half solve this problem. If a compromise like this is pursued as the best option,
there is a distinct possibility that there would be even more problems. If there were two types of
peers, there might be rivalry and that might cause even more problems. There is also the issue of
cost as peers at present only qualify for an allowance and not a salary. The Lords spiritual is another
area of potential conflict if the House of Lords is to see further reform because this will ultimately
become a constitutional issue as to remove them would be effectively saying that the UK should
become secular, and a whole new debate would be started. Did Tony Blair start something that
cannot be finished? The question for the UK remains, can we carry on with a less than ideal but very
effective parliamentary democracy, or do we restructure, re-evaluate and reform our parliament
once and for all? The question remains at the forefront of political debate, but in the background of
public interest and without support or consensus nothing is likely to change in the near future,
whether is justified or not.
Year 13 2015
Contributers:
Jonas Rasche
Corey Norwood
Alex Best
Andrew Abdi
Ross Wardlow
Nikolai Koplewski