As I said at the start, the government initially promised a two-stage reform, and the norm in the UK is to see House of Lords reform as unfinished business. So much is its current state considered merely temporary, that few bother to look at how the Lords is actually operating. However, we in Britain have a long history of temporary solutions that somehow stick. The reforms in , and were all considered shot-term fixes, to be followed by longer-term solutions when the players could reach agreement and parliamentary time could be found.
There is every indication that the reform will prove to be the same. There are many in the Labour Party who remain committed to Lords reform. However, they remain committed to it for very different reasons. To some extent this diversity of view with respect to how many checks a second chamber should put on government has always existed in the Labour Party. But more than ever it is now appreciated that the objectives of democratising the Lords and weakening it are fundamentally incompatible.
If one seemingly minor compositional change—the long overdue removal of the hereditary peers—results in a chamber which is this much more assertive, there are major concerns in some quarters about the power that would be unleashed by creating an elected chamber.
The government is internally divided, and it has been unable to come up with a set of proposals that can secure sufficient support. In the House of Commons voted on a variety of options for the composition of a second chamber and all of them—ranging from all-elected to all-appointed and five options in between—were rejected by the house.
Since we have had a Royal Commission, two joint committee reports, and we are rumoured to be about to get our fourth government white paper on Lords reform. But I suspect this will go the same way as all the other proposals.
In fact the rumours are that the government wants to square the circle by proposing a half elected half appointed chamber—which rather than being welcomed as a compromise is simply likely to be rejected by all sides. So the Lords composition remains controversial. Whilst the Lords has the support of the public for its policy interventions this would be a very risky and controversial step, and it would be strongly resisted by the Lords itself.
Probably the likeliest reform is a further minor one, to tidy up the appointments process, reducing the patronage of the prime minister and giving more power to the independent commission which was established in to oversee appointments.
There is growing pressure for this given recent controversies about seats for party donors. However, even this step is seen by some as dangerous as it will further increase the legitimacy of the chamber, and once again its strength. The first is, as the title of this talk suggested, that a little reform can go a long way. Despite the seemingly minor—many would say inadequate—nature of the change to the House of Lords in , power relations have shifted significantly as a result.
Reform can have unintended consequences, and those consequences can be bigger than you might expect.
We do have prior experience of this in Britain—to some extent the same could be said of the reform which introduced life peers. This was seen as a short-term fix, but lasted 40 years and in many ways reinvigorated the House, certainly saving it from terminal decline. Here there are clearly parallels with the introduction of PR for the Australian Senate. The second big conclusion is about the shape of British politics. We clearly offer the definitive Westminster system, with a strong executive sustained by a single-party majority in the House of Commons, and able between elections to legislate relatively freely—simply facing the wrath of the electors next time round if the wrong decisions are taken.
If this ever was true, it may well have been ended by this seemingly minor reform to the Lords. Because of the unelected basis of the Lords, and its lesser powers compared to the Commons, it does remain clearly the junior partner.
The shift in party power relations is not as stark as it would be if we moved, as many have proposed, to a system of proportional representation for the Commons. Indeed what we are left with is something like what you have experienced in recent decades—a compromise between majoritarian and consensus politics. And we are now likely to remain there. Having achieved the current party balance in the House of Lords there is now an expectation that no party will seek to hold a majority there.
This applies in the current appointed house, and it is also a feature of all serious proposals for an elected chamber. As a result small parties and independents look set to grow in influence, making policy making more pluralistic than it has ever been in modern Britain. In addition the balance of power seems to have tilted sharply from executive to parliament, with the House of Commons even working in partnership with the rejuvenated House of Lords.
Our one small change has potential to reshape both the party system and the role of parliament in British politics. The final lesson is one for bicameral studies in general, and runs counter to expectations. It is generally noted that elected chambers are likely to be more powerful than appointed chambers, as appointed chambers will suffer from legitimacy problems.
But all else rarely is equal, and there are other factors, I conclude, which may be more important. On both these axes the House of Lords is really unchanged by its recent reform—its powers are unaltered, its members continue to represent nobody in a formal sense, and as it is unelected its legitimacy continues to be open to question. In other words your system of bicameralism is strong, and remains equally strong despite recent change, while ours is weak, and remains equally weak.
Both examples indicate the importance of the party balance in a second chamber. But the story of the House of Lords suggests that party balance, and other factors boosting the perceived legitimacy of a chamber, may actually be more important than whether it is elected and enjoys democratic legitimacy in the traditional sense.
In our system the funny old House of Lords with its retired experts and numerous members not taking a party whip has a new appeal as people grow cynical about politicians and political parties. Its relative proportionality has a clear appeal too, given that no government has won a majority of the popular vote since This is particularly true when, inevitably after almost ten years, disenchantment with the government has become widespread.
The issues of second chamber power, composition and legitimacy are intricately entwined: power flows in part from legitimacy as Lijphart says, but legitimacy may come from places other than those you would immediately think.
It seems strange to say that British politics may be invigorated by an unelected chamber which still contains 92 hereditary peers.
But if, as I suspect, no further reform happens for some time, we may look back in years to come and see that a small and unappreciated reform has changed British politics in very significant ways. Firstly these hereditary peers who have been expelled—I take that they still carry their titles do they?
Secondly, the ones who remain, have there been any transfers by the death of one of the remaining ones and does the son become a member of the House of Lords, or does it die? Meg Russell — The hereditaries that are expelled, yes, they retain their title. So we now have Lords in parliament as well as Lords out of parliament.
Part of the compromise package that enabled the 92 to remain provided for them to be replaced upon death. The way that the 92 were chose, as I said, was an election by their peers. The whole body of hereditary peers elected one tenth roughly of their total to remain the house, and it was done mostly by party groups. So the Conservatives elected the Conservatives who remained and so on.
On the 9th and 10th November, the House of Lords will be hosting their fifth hereditary peer by-election this year. The House of Lords Act led to the removal of all but 90 hereditary Join our email list to get up to date analysis of the broken system sitting at the heart of the political system. Skip to content Menu Search. Ireland ERS Cymru. Why are there still hereditary peers in the House of Lords?
Photograph: Roger Harris. Parliamentary copyright images are reproduced with the permission of Parliament. One such hindrance is most certainly the presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords. Who are hereditary peers? Hereditary peers form part of the peerage of the United Kingdom and are the holders of titles such as Dukes, Earls, Viscounts and Barons Hereditary peers are those whose right to sit in the Lords is due to their title being inherited from their fathers or, much less frequently, their mothers.
How did they get there? Please update your billing details here. Please update your billing information. The subscription details associated with this account need to be updated. Please update your billing details here to continue enjoying your subscription. The last time a byelection for a Labour hereditary peer arose was earlier this summer, when the successful — and only — candidate was the 3rd Viscount Stansgate, better known as Stephen Benn.
He is the son of the former cabinet minister Tony Benn, whose protests against hereditary titles in the s helped hasten their replacement with life peerages. Labour finally finds willing hereditary peer for House of Lords seat. The Queen delivering a speech in the House of Lords during the state opening of parliament in May Photograph: Reuters.
0コメント