Gisela Stuart MP Editor, House Magazine

This week it is the Lords' turn to express their views on reform of the House of Lords

Historically consensus has always been difficult to achieve. Proposals tended to be too conservative for the radicals and too radical for the conservatives. But it was different this time. The Commons surprised everyone, including if I might suggest themselves, by overwhelmingly voting for a 100 per cent elected House of Lords.

This vote for radical changes in the "other" place will probably lead to calls for similar and not entirely unwarranted calls, for the Commons to reform as well.

The debate in the Lords this week will important for three reasons.

First, there are a significant number of members in the Lords who know how the Commons works, whereas there is only one MP who has served in the Lords.

Second, the reduction of the number of hereditary peers means that there is no longer a single party which has majority in the Lords. The dynamics of power have changed; the influence of Cross-benchers who by definition are not members of political parties has increased.

Third, radical changes to the Lords require similar radical changes to our constitutional arrangements. A democratically elected second chamber will strengthen the calls for a written constitution.

The vote in the Commons last week was the starting point for a much deeper debate into what it means to be a parliamentary democracy in the 21st century.

My hunch is that it will go much wider than anticipated. Questions will range from the power of the executive, our relationship to the institutions of the European Union to the straight forward cost implications of electing and paying for a more democratically constituted second chamber.

The Commons had their say last week. The Lords will have theirs this week – but what do you think?

 

The Issues

MPs have voted with a majority of 113 in favour of establishing a new House of Lords which is 100 per cent elected.

But far from being the final word, Wednesday's vote was in some ways just the beginning of the process.

Next week the House of Lords itself will vote on how it should be changed, and it is far from certain that peers will agree with the position adopted by the House of Commons.

But if there is a consensus, the next question is - will the government really want to see its legislative agenda dominated by the extraordinarily complex constitutional issues involved.

If Gordon Brown becomes prime minister this summer, will Lords reform become a flagship policy to introduce greater democracy and signal his radicalism, or would he prefer to concentrate on issues of potentially greater interest to the public such as law and order, health, education and welfare reform?

And if the government does press ahead with reform, the devil will be in the detail:

- What electoral system should be used?

- How big should the constituencies be?

- How long should there be between Lords elections?

- Should the Lords elections coincide with European Parliament elections, or be kept entirely separate?

 

And there are still questions about the membership of the Lords, even if it is fully elected:

- Will there be no more bishops? What does that mean for the Church of England?

- What happens to the Cross-benchers? Will they seek election as independents, or form their own political party, or join the other parties?

- If there are delays in implementing reforms, should hereditary peers be removed immediately through separate legislation?

And after that there are the issues which may only be addressed after the elected house is established:

- What if the elected Lords refuses to be bound by the conventions which governed its powers when it was unelected? For example, after an election it could claim to have greater legitimacy than the Commons, which may have been elected years earlier.

- What will be the relationship between MPs and the new members of the upper house? Will both be able to take on constituency work?

- Will the scrutiny of government and its legislation actually be improved? Or will it be hindered by the introduction of more party control?


Commons leader Jack Straw has said he will now reflect on the latest decision, discuss the issues with other political parties and then announce what the government intends to do.

One obstacle to reforming the House of Lords may have been overcome, but there are many more issues to deal with yet.

As previous attempts (such as establishing the Department for Constitutional Affairs and the new Supreme Court) to reform parts of Britain's unwritten constitution have shown, once the process begins it is hard to say where it will end.

Politics is by its nature a dynamic process. Whatever legislation is, or is not, eventually passed to change the House of Lords, that will not be the final word.

Blog Comments

Hi

We don't want a reformed House of Lords.

We want an abolished House of Lords.

Graham

There's been a lot of talk today suggesting that the big majority for a fully elected House of Lords was somehow not valid because MP's motives for voting "yes" might have been mixed. Well, there weren't two "aye" lobbies last night - one for those voting "aye", and another for those voting "aye, but we don't really mean it!". There was just ONE aye lobby, with a thumping big majority for an fully elected, democratic upper chamber. Parliament, the government, the parties mustn't allow this vote to be lost in the "long grass" - if we do, we will make the public even more cynical about the political process.

Many thanks for this summary. I wait with baited breath (really!) to see how it all turns out.

The Commons now awaits the Lords vote to get rid of itself. We will see the machinations that take place. Added to that the poppycock that some aye votes weren't really that and the progress to the final outcome will be fun to watch.

I was not at all surprised that the House of Commons voted in favour of a largely elected (80%) House. I was surprised that they also voted for a fully elected House because this would remove the small (20%) element of Independent non-party political Peers, who make a distinct contribution to the House and seem to be much appreciated by the public which is often disillusioned with politics. This House will vote its view next week, probably in favour of an all appointed House, setting the scene for, I expect, long, long discussions before anything passes into law.

On a specific point: I personally favour the Danish list system, which allows parties to choose between closed lists, semi-open (as per the Government proposal) and fully open. The first is the system used in Euro-elections: the party chooses the order that candidates win seats. The semi-open system allows voters to overturn the party's choice, but voters can also simply vote for the party and this means they vote for the candidates in the order selected. The fully open system means that votes for the party are neutral as to which candidates are chosen: this gives the party's voters most power to select who they want. By leaving it to each party to decide which option to use, we can find out which party is most willing to let voter choice override party management. But semi-open is certainly a huge step forward vs closed.

I favour regional electoral colleges with, say, local authorities, business, unions, voluntary sector involved to elect representatives to the second chamber. There seems to be a supposition that these will be 'direct' elections. That need not necessarily be the case.

The House of Commons should next seek to announce the date of the elections to the Lords, the election system, the length of tenure (8 years is long enough) its role and its size; it is clear that the elected members have said that 100% elected is what we want and whilst the Lords may wnat to hold this up they will just discredit themselves and hasten their demise.

The House of Commons is far too much the creature of the executive, which controls our business and our timetable. Our objective for an elected Upper House should be to maximise its independence and to avoid the opportunity for patronage that is such a pronounced feature of the Commons. Members of the Upper House should be elected for a single long term of office and there should be no ministers or other government appointments in the House. Ministers from the Commons could be accountable in both Houses.

I am in favour of a wholly elected House and will be voting for it next week. You are right. The devil is in the detail and the real issue will be around the powers. Will conventions which have no force of law hold in a wholly elected House. If not, what to do? Remember Parliament accepted the principle of an elected House in 1911 because the preamble to the Act makes clear it was seen as an interim measure until a House could be formed by popular mandate. The issue for the last 100 years has always been about the respective relationship re the 2 Houses. Re-election process, I strongly favour election by thirds. It reduces legitimacy of the second chamber to confront the Commons and allows for a transition over 15 years between the current Lords and the new second chamber. That will also help to retain the best of the culture of the Lords which is around its scrutiny of legislation in the context of accepting primacy of the Commons.

100% elected is fine. I support that with one worry. A reformed House that becomes a retirement home for ex-MPs is not. The temptation for parties to offer a place on the list will be attractive because the name will be already well known to voters and because it will be a reward for obedient voting in the Commons.

I wonder how many current Peers who do diligent work scrutinising legislation and offering their expert – and frequently apolitical – opinions for the benefit of parliament, would relish the chance to go electioneering, with all the political artifice that requires.

An elected upper house may be more democratic – but will over time surely start to replicate the make-up of the Commons. The attraction and effectiveness of an appointed House is that it involves people who to a large extent are driven by different factors than MPs. Those who have particular knowledge or quiet analytical minds are most likely not to be drawn to the partisan skirmishing electioneering requires – are we sure we want to do away with the former and get more of the latter?

There exists a vital role for a House of experts and cross-benchers – and appointing them, I suspect, is the only way to get them, as anachronistic as that may be.

Roderick Millar makes a most important point. Any politicisation of the Upper House, requiring members to undertake party political electioneering on the hustings, will inevitably cause the Upper House to replicate the Commons, driven by usually short term political priorities. How can this be a sound basis for scrutiny and revision? This is a recipe for tyranny.

By choosing 100 per cent elected the Commons have severed all links with the past (and have in passing disestablished the CofE).

In deciding what comes next they can start from first principles - Functions, powers, membership, term and method of selection/election. We await their proposals with interest.

Having just been declared illegitimate, what is the role of the current House of Lords in its transformation?

To revise, certainly, on the usual terms. But should we also be prepared to refuse any class of proposal?

My view is that we should stand fast against one that weakened parliament vis a vis the executive and party managers. For instance, 100 per cent elected with first past the post.

The second House should be one of wisdom. A place where the Acts and Bills of Parliament are scrutinised. It should be non party political. However with great respect to many elderly Lords and Ladies, I think there should be a retirment age - somewhere between 70 and 75. I fear that election would give uncontrolled power to the party in power in Parliament, and MPs could "run away" without a brake on thier sometimes indiscretions.

I do not want ANY elections at all! They will destroy the place.

If the Lords are to be elected there should be a good mix of experience, without any party affiliation. There should be representatives from the professions in particular, but also from the voluntary agencies, which have in the past relieved the Government of great pressure. The medical and psychiatric professions and nursing should be represented, Also the Law, which is at present very complicated, and causing some difficulties. If the Church is to be represented there should be someone from each religion, as there appears to be a great difference in mores at present, and this should be resovled. I would suggest a retirement age of 70/75, with older members who wish to contribute to do so via their perusal of the Acts and Bills in their own homes. Their expertise should not be lost.

"Commons leader Jack Straw has said he will now reflect on the latest decision, discuss the issues with other political parties and then announce what the government intends to do."

Sounds a fine statement but the debate was about the wrong issue: the composition of the House depends on what the intended function is. Any GCSE and A Level student doing a project has first to identify what the purpose is and then decide on the best way to achieve that. A fully elected chamber is for a different purpose than one made up of selected experts.

That the House of Commons spent its time voting on a series of elected v chosen options is a sure sign that this measure would not pass even the most rudimentary exam test.

I am dissapointed that with so many responses from MPs and Lords members in these blog comments, so little is mentioned about what the public want. The public form (or should do) a crucial aspect of this debate, yet seem curiously absent in most of the discussion on the topic.

Now that the House of Commons has expressed its overwhelming wish for a wholly elected second chamber we should complete the logical process. That means, to me, abolishing the House of Commons, creating an English parliament with a First minister to sit in the Commons Chamber and, in tandem with Scots, Northern Ireland and Welsh parliaments to deal with all domestic issues and local taxation. The second chamber - Senate - would then be elected on a two-member per United Kingdom county basis (irrespective of size), would elect the Prime Minister from within its number and would preside over Defence, Foreign policy and macro-taxation, the original purposes of parliament. West Lothian question answered!

My long-time comrade Mark Lazarowicz is being somewhat disingenuous when he says that there was only one type of vote in the Commons last week in favour of a fully elected upper chamber. In reality there were two, because those MPs who voted in favour of it cannot have had the same motives as those who did so but also voted in favour of a fully appointed upper chamber.

I'm long enough in the tooth to be able to spot what was afoot, but the vote clearly does not represent the views of a homogenous group of MPs.

Nonetheless, I shall be voting for a fully elected second chamber because (a) the concept of a fully appointed one is not defensible and (b) because a hybrid house is not in my view either tenable or workable. Having had experience of a hybrid house in the Scottish Parliament, I know that many of the directly elected members there regard the list MSPs as second class members (though they're not, because all MSPs are democratically elected under the system legislated for by Westminster). Just imagine then the relationship between - let alone the public perception of - two very distinctly different classes of upper house members (they couldn't be called lords, of course), those elected and those appointed. No matter the proportion in each category, it's a recipe for mistrust and perhaps even contempt, particularly on the part of those who did take the considerable trouble to get both selected and elected.

So, a 100% elected upper house it should be - but I hope MPs who are feeling satisfied with their work last week thought long and hard as to what such an outcome will mean. The Commons will of course retain primacy, but that's about all that will remain the same. You can't invite people to give up their careers and seek election merely to have the right to revise and delay legislation. An elected member will want - and certainly deserves -more power than that.

Reading the responses from the political "estate" has convinced me that a wholly elected chamber is truly the worst of all options. Indeed it seems to me that Gisela Stuart’s analysis reinforces the argument against this.

Take for example her argument about the inbalance of mutual understanding of the workings of the two. Surely this is a fault of the MPs rather than of the system. And might one not argue that some of the antipathy to the Lords would be reduced were the MPs more attuned to the work of the upper chamber.

Moving onto her other two arguments there seems to be a non-sequitur between them. Why does she believe that the decline of the influence of the parties in favour of the cross benchers of itself necessitates a radical change to our constitutional affairs – and,therefore a democtratically elected second chamber.

Nor am I totally persuaded by Ms Stuart's call for a deep debate on the meaning of Parilamentary democracy in the 21st Century. Is it really conceivable that it would be possible to arrive at a consensus. Who would arbitrate and who would arbitrate between the aribtrators.

Might one not argue that this shift of power yeilds much of what is required to provide a balanced democratic government. A political elected Lower House supported by a well informed revising chamber with just enough powers to cause the Government to pause. Some minor changes would be valuable.

• Fixed terms –longer than two full parliaments but shorter than 3 (12 years), - Lord Hunt’s period of transition makes sense.

• A facility for retiring members of the Lords to stand for election

• A bar on members of the Upper House from holding government posts

And I’m sure other minor change could be brought in.

But, gentle people, is the state of democracy so broke that you must spend countiless hours of parliamentary time and vast sums of taxpayers mone