Coalition does not have 'permanent inbuilt majority'

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Lord Wallace of Saltaire challenges the claim that the coalition has undermined the role of the Lords as a revising chamber.

Has the establishment of a coalition government changed ‘the fundamental role’ of the House of Lords as a revising chamber? In the debate on Lords working practices on July 12, Baroness Royall, now Labour opposition leader in the Lords, asserted that it had. “If the government has a permanent inbuilt majority,”she went on, “the new voting pattern in this House of the new politics is putting in question the traditional role of this House as a revising chamber.”

After ten weeks, in which the government has lost three divisions in the Lords and won four, the image which the Labour front bench appears to have, of united and disciplined Conservative and Liberal Democrat peers marching in step through the lobbies to defeat every amendment and critical motion, seems far-fetched.

On the arithmetic, Baroness Royall’s assertion that the coalition has ‘a permanent inbuilt majority’ is plain wrong. It’s true that 268 coalition peers (192 Conservative, 76 Liberal Democrat) narrowly outweigh the 231 Labour peers in the current House; but 181 crossbenchers, 25 bishops, and nine others confidently hold the balance.

The government’s first defeat, on the issue of whether the Local Government Bill was hybrid, was partly due to abstentions by Conservatives who were persuaded by crossbench and Labour arguments in the course of the debate. The second defeat was on a motion proposed by a former Liberal Democrat leader; the largest group in those who followed Lord Steel through the lobby were crossbenchers, the second-largest Conservatives.

Liberal Democrat abstentions, and a strong crossbench turnout, accounted for the third defeat, on Baroness Wilkins’ amendment to the Academies Bill on special educational needs.
Of the government victories, Labour lost Lord Hunt’s committee amendment on the Academies Bill because most crossbenchers supported the government; while Baroness Royall’s amendment, on July 7, failed because only 39 Labour peers voted. On this record, the Lords’ position as a revising chamber – in which no minister can take assent for granted without a persuasive rationale – looks secure.

When I first joined the Lords 15 years ago, I learned that to win a vote you needed supporting speeches from at least two of the three party groups and from the crossbenches. If support came from all four of these, you were likely to win. That remains the case in this coalition Parliament.

After the summer break, the Labour front bench will come to recognise that the role of the Lords and the behaviour of its members have not changed in any fundamental way.

This article first appeared in The House Magazine.