I admit I find debate on reform of the House of Lords deeply uninteresting.
Of course as a democrat I am in favour of second chamber reform. What we have is very obviously an anachronism. But it sort of works.
In the meantime banking, pensions, social care, the economy as a whole, the tax system and much more besides do not work.
So yes, we need House of Lords reform. But right now to make that the centre of political debate looks like self-indulgent squabbling by those without the will or desire to change the real world. And that's the last thing we need for the sake of democracy right now.
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Richard – how I agree. Of course the Lords should be reformed, but in current circumstances, it’s like arguing about who should go in which lifeboats in the precious time before the ship founders, when such a decision should already have been made, and written into the emergency procedures of the ship.
And that’s exactly the point – the current shower only have procedures for three things
1) Helping their friends (involving self enrichment)
2) Deconstructing civil (and civilized!) society
3) Self-preservation (so we know who would be in the lifeboats first!)
It’s this last that’s making Clegg cling to Lords reform – something to salvage his broken reputation (and it is indeed broken!), after the cowardice of student loans, swallowing the deficit propaganda, and of accepting mere AV as the solution to the UK’s democratic deficit. AV is not, and never was, a form of proportionality, but merely ensures that at least 50% of an elctorate has cast some sort of vote for the winner. Clegg should have stuck out for REAL PR.
This all goes back to shyster Blair, of course: he had the chance to argue for, and implement the Jenkins Report, with its proposal for AV+, as a reasonable compromise between FPTP and PR, which would have produced a system akin to the MMS (multi-member system) in New Zealand. Blair had the majority, and the charisma/reputation to win that argument in his first Parliament, and having won that, Lords reform – REAL reform – would have followed shortly thereafter. And the current bunch of pygmies would almost certainly NOT be in power; instead I think we would have some sort of Red-Green coalition, for far more Greens would now be in Parliament. In consequence, I think your Green New deal would now be a reality.
Blair’s pusillanimous kicking of the Jenkins’ Report into the long grass was for me the final straw in my estrangement from the Labour Party, and led to my resigning from the Party in 2001, only returning in 2009, when it seemed Gordon Brown was moving Labour back towards electoral reform, as well as clearly repudiating a lot of New Labour nonsense.
Electoral reform was, and is, an issue of conscience for me, a means of attaining “wise” Government, rather than “strong” (or even worse “radical”) Government. It’s easy to be radical – consider the current shower (and Richard Lambert’s witty “Swiftian” take on the Beechcroft employment law proposals); to be wise is MUCH harder, as the Con-Dems daily demonstrate. It is wisdom and wise government that I am in hopes of seeing from Miiliband.
Andrew, I’m sure you already have, but if not, read Jackie Ashley’s piece, here, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/08/lords-reform-coalition-saving-face
‘shyster Blair’ Excellent 🙂
I couldn’t agree more with what you’ve written @Andrew DIckie, particularly your preference from wise (plural?) government rather than strong government per se. I’m always vexed beyond belief when the defenders of the status quo, and FPTP in particular, sight the latters predisposition towards ‘electing’ strong governments (far from certain in the current samey-sanguine political climate). The realisty is that the British public don’t elect strong governments (no government in decades has enjoyed >50% support at the polls), and yet we’re expected to support such scewed results as ‘democratic’. They most patently are not!
The next time a Tory whines and gripes about the Labour bias to justify their gerrymandering, it should be made plane to them that they had the perfect opportunity to establish a fair system with proportional representation (STV). Anything else is self-interested gerrymandering, aimed at improving the lot of the Tories (or Labour – in the duopoly, both have shown a willingness to avoid a fair electoral system for their own gain) rather then achieving any sort of fairness. The Liberal Democrats *shudder*, UKIP *vomits*, Greens *smiles hesitantly*, et. al. have a much more compelling claim to an unfair imbalance in their electoral lot, and the Tories crying wolf here is pure farce.
Just kick out the hereditaries for now. That’s the most egregious fault.
…and the Lords Spiritual, surely. If religion is to have a role in legislation, let it be restricted to committees and be advisory rather than binding.
The only reason to regard reforming the HoL as significant is to look at it in terms of whether it means it is more easy to manipulate – this goes back to the 1911 Lloyd George budget case which reduced the powers of the Lords substantially (and ironically what brought that to a head was a proposal to implement land tax: see the Wikipedia article here.
In that regard it’s important. But economic policy, tax, health, education are important and urgent – and as you rightly say they have to take priority.
Keynes “But this long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead. Economists set themselves too easy, too useless a task if in tempestuous seasons they can only tell us that when the storm is long past the ocean is flat again.”
So public sector pensions and Lords reform it is then.
Pointless having the Lords when the ‘other place’ can and does use financial privilege to overrule it whenever it wants to. We should give up the pretence of any effective second chamber and simply scrap it.
A unicameral system would be even worse. Legislation would pass in a flash, with little chance for public opinion to ferment and consensus to build for or against said legislation. Which means even less time to organise public protest and apply pressure to the House of Commons (by then, the only port of call). Yes, the House of Commons can force through money bills (although is this not merely by convention, rather than de jure per se) but they can’t force through the majority of bills (the parliament act, odious contrivance that it is, is rarely used), and they are frequently forced to negotiate and accept the upper chambers amendments. These amendments haven’t been particularly compelling of late, but that’s got more to do with the bulk of the traditional protesters (the Liberal Democrats) being kowed in coalition in both chambers, and of course the far from optimal make-up of the upper chamber (namely political appointees, grandfathered MPs and civil servants and plutocrats) doesn’t help.
So please, for the love of all sanity, don’t push us down the road of a unicameral system. Without provisions for de jure popular sovereignty (e.g. formal rights to binding referendums, public grand juries, right-of-recall, etc…) we’d be living under an elected oligarchy, even more so than we are today!
Agreed
Better the HoL than that
I’m surprised at you! The Lords is at the heart of the corrupt state you rail against.
I know that
It’s an issue of priorities
And this may be the wrong one
I guess that I just tend to believe that most other desirable reforms depend upon democratic reform; I can’t see our current constitutional settlement allowing your priory reforms.
Fair point…
I know that you’ve said that you find debate over House of Lords reform “deeply uninteresting” Richard, but you’ve opened yourself up… 😉
On a personal level I find the direction of House of Lords reform (towards a majority of elected members) deeply troubling. There’s a rather too simplistic, and dare I say it a naïveté, assumption that more elections will amount to better or more representative governance. Neither is the case with the current proposals. If I’ve read the situation correctly, newly elected Lords (under the system proposed) will serve a single term of 15 years. No opportunity for reelection (i.e. no opportunity for the electorate to vote with their… vote) and essential little-no accountability for 15 years in any given seat. Their may be provisions for recall elections in this ‘brave’ new House of Lords, but I expect them to be just as weak and ineffective as any such provisions introduced for the House of Commons. Given this, I can’t see the new House of Lords being particularly representative or much better than the House of Commons (not without root and branch reform of the political system in this country), even IF elected under a proportional election system such as STV (plurality and proportionality do not necessarily equate to a representative chamber). So all in all, I’m not bowled over by the proposals and wouldn’t be even IF I bought into the conceit that more elections necessarily makes for better governance.
For me, if the upper chamber has any value at all, it is as a house of review. It shouldn’t nominally introduce legislation (although in principle, I see no reason why it shouldn’t be allowed to, as long as said legislation is passed down to the House of Commons for approval) but rather scrutinize it from a position of knowledge, wisdom, evidence, experience and philosophy. It’s most valuable as a source of learned advice to the House of Commons and the population at large**. Sure, committees can serve this role, and in many ways the flexibility of the committee system makes it better suited to investigating narrow fields in great detail. However, my understanding of the committees system at Westminster is that the House of Commons selects who to call, who to dismiss and who/which evidence to listen to (and which to ignore!). This rather neuters any committee, and supplicates them (and the evidence) to the will of ideologues rather than holding said ideologues to account, which is necessary in any legislature that values an evidence based approach. Obviously an Elected House of Lords can no more deliver this than the current system of grandfathering and plutocratic privilege (i.e. the assumption that earning big money equates to merit), and certainly no more than the House of Commons can. If we are to have a useful upper chamber it MUST (in my humble opinion) be constituted via an independent, transparent, apolitical (no more party political whips/appointees!) and most importantly MERITOCRATIC appointments system. It’s not an easy task to undertake (who decides minimum qualifications, mix of expertise, definition of merit, etc…) and it MUST be open to public scrutiny and veto/recall of appointments/appointees via public petition (with the minimum of interference from the House of Commons – I’ve had it up to here /^ with parliamentary sovereignty trumping popular sovereignty). Furthermore, for it to have any real power such a reform MUST come with a recourse (for both chambers) to defer deadlocked legislation to a referendum or public grand jury (1000 jurors selected via sortition) so as to assert the primacy of the people over parliament. Elected oligarchs are not necessarily better then meritocrats or technocrats (our current system illustrates this), the people must be the ultimate arbiters of which are talking sense and/or serving the public interest.
As you can see, I’m not at all convinced that an elected (even only a majority elected) is at all a good idea. To me it represents a rather crude attempt to increase the number of MPs, and improve the position of minority parties (which would be better served by reform of the House of Commons and the electoral system in my opinion). At best, it will slow down the passage of legislation, allowing more time for consideration (although the House of Lords currently does this anyway, and at least there are a few knowledgeable, apolitical voiced therein). This is pretty much the only reason I don’t see a unicameral system as preferable to a wholly elected bicameral system. Without that delay, and with parliamentary sovereignty held as sacrosanct (as it currently is) a unicameral system would allow the House of Commons to impose legislation with little-no time for public consensus to build for or against said legislation and (if appropriate) for protest to ferment and apply pressure for amendments.
Meritocracy/Technocracy isn’t a dirty word (no more than ‘Democracy’ is). Such can be constituted in a fair, accountable and beneficial way (I’m sure of that). There’s only one reason to dismiss Meritocracy/Technocracy as essential to legislation, and that is the hubris and power hungry nature of our ideological/political class. They don’t like it up ’em *cough* I mean they don’t like leaned scrutiny being brought to bear on their ill-thought our machinations (or legislative tripe/offal as I prefer to call it).
I share your concerns about the proposed “reforms”, and would prefer something along these lines (ideas cannot be copyrighted, only patented, but I reserve copyright in the current proposal, as so expressed – probably quite futuile, as I imagine I will get savaged by other proposals, and numerous objections. However, I WOULD like to preserve to element of expertise currently contained in the Lords. The following proposal is also entirely shorn of any Party affiliation, which is replaced by life experience and knowledge) (Richard – apologies for giving you a whole wodge of text to moderate. If you diced it’s all too OTT, please feel free to delete it, flagging up my acceptance of the same!)
Parliamentary and Electoral Reform Basic Structure
Two Chambers, consisting of
– House of Representatives (the old House of Commons), made up of and 500 members
– House of Delegates (the old House of Lords), made up of 360 members.
House of Representatives
– Term: 5 years
– Total Membership = 500 members
– Designation: MP(R) = Representative Member of Parliament (abbreviated to Representative)
– Method of election: STV
– Grouping =
a) 100 x 4-member constituencies, each constituency having both an all-male and an all female list, so that the House would be 50% male and 50% female in composition
b)100 additional members, selected by PR, to make up the total. (This allows proportionality adjustments to be made, at the risk of tipping the 50:50 gender split one way or the other, but only marginally)
House of Delegates
– Term: 3 years maximum, when full re-delegation will take place — (with the ability to re delegate at any time, in response to key issues and questions, so that the Chamber becomes a sort of on-going referendum mechanism).
– Total Membership = 360 members
– Designation: MP(D) = Delegate Member of Parliament (abbreviated to Delegate)
– Method of election: Delegation from Electoral Colleges
– Grouping = 12 Electoral Colleges, each producing 30 Delegates, up to 5 of whom may be appointed (permitting reward and recognition to expertise)
– Electoral Colleges as follows — set out alphabetically
1. Agriculture and fishing
2. Arts, culture, sport and recreation
3. Business and manufacturing
4. Education, and academia/research
5. Faith groups, and other belief systems (including Humanism and Atheism)
6. Green agenda
7. Health and medicine
8. Media and information
9. Law and order and the legal and probation professions
10. Science and Technology
11. Voluntary sector and Welfare Benefits recipients
12. Workforce organizations = e.g. Trade Unions
The Members of the House of Delegates would be appointed/chosen by the next level down, which would be a national/regional government level (Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and about 6 English regions, North East, North West, Midlands, East Anglia, South West and Greater London). Clearly, current professional organizations could help shape these Colleges.
Below these regions would be several other levels of organization, right down to Parish Council level, from which level the initial Delegates would be chosen, to attend the next level, which would choose the Delegates for the next level.
Citizens would join any College they had a life-link with, by reason of their profession, expertise or interest, but could only be a Delegate in ONE Electoral College, though they would be able to attend, and vote in more than one bottom level Electoral College.
At any time the House of Delegates could vote to re-delegate itself, with the result that ALL Delegates would cease to hold office, and the process of selection Delegates from the bottom tier, then all the way up would take place. Such re-delegation could be either because the 3-year term of office had come to an end, OR because the House of Delegates felt it proper that the public pulse should be taken on some key issue.
The House of Delegates would only scrutinize legislation, with a power to amend, delay, or declare unconstitutional, sending to back to the House of Representatives for consideration.
One final point, the local Colleges for Education and Health could act as the REAL democratic voice, and instrument of scrutiny and oversight at that local level.
Finally, on the question of the democratic mandate, the 5 year/3 year sequence would help manage this, as their elections would only co-incide every 15 years
That is one well thought out response! Although I’m sure that there other potential formulations of appointment process, yours seems appropriate. Incorporating, as it does, elements of merit and democracy. I do wonder though, whether the members of the various professional bodies and special interest groups responsible for selecting these delegates can be trusted to put politics, ideology and (perhaps most importantly) the temptation to rent seek aside and select candidates on the basis of true merit, experience, etc. I suspect that context and a sense of professional pride could serve to push such selections processes in that direction (merit), but there’s always room for politics and ideology to creep in (which is a worry for me) especially in special interest groups not ties to professional organisation (where a sense of pride might dissuade professionals from selecting opening ideological candidates).
I suspect that a lot of people will, however, have an emotive and visceral reaction to your proposals. Calling it elitist or snobbish. Which would, in my opinion would be wrong. Your proposed system, to my mind, doesn’t see to democratise the upper chamber as it does to maintain a broad chorus of voices selected via qualified electors (better than a interview panel of just 2-5 elites?) who know who can best represent their field. That seems sensible to me, especially if one accepts that the aim of reform in the upper chamber should be to retain some semblance of qualified review process. Also, you seem to have covered a broad range of professions and interest groups, so there’s every likelihood that most (if not all) who are eligible to vote would also be eligible to select delegates in one or more divisions should they so wish.
I’d like to make clear at this point that I am not at all a snob or an elitist. On the contrary, I favour greater democracy (preferably via PR in the lower chamber, a proper right of recall, a statutory right of referendum and similar measures towards direct democracy). I’ve just come to the conclusion that there are some limitations to our model of representative democracy. Namely, that a gaggle of ideological politicians are not always best placed to review legislation on the basis of objective evidence. I favour the primacy of the people (expressed via referendums and grand juries) over both politicians and technocrats. However, where there is conflict between the latter two (especially if the technocrats are of high quality, and not vested interests, friends of the powerful and rent seekers) and where it is irreconcilable, I contend that it is the people (not politicians – untrustworthy oligarchs, the majority of them) who should be the ultimate arbiters. The best of representative democracy (for the day-to-day, hum-drum of legislative and executive governance, and to provide a check against unelected meritocrats/technocrats), direct democracy (for key and contentions issues) and meritocracy/technocracy (to provide qualified oversight and a check on our politicians) all rolled into one glorious whole if you will. 🙂
I wonder whether it would be better to re-delegate in a staggered arrangement (i.e. a 33% of delegates across the board, or certain divisions in their entirety, re-delegating every year) unless, as you say, an exceptional event makes re-delegation of the entire chamber (or just certain divisions thereof) a prudent act.
Whilst I like the term House of Representative I can’t help but pine for the House of Commons and the chance to replaced that must conceited of self-considered honoraries “The Right Honourable MP for X” with “The Commoner for X” or “The Common MP for X”. Such language, repeated over and over again in the chamber, might just remind our elected oligarchs just who their are, where they came from and who they represent.
Also, wouldn’t RMP (Representative Member of Parliament) and DMP (Delgate Member of Parliament) be better abbreviations. Although RuMP and DuMP don’t exactly paint a pretty picture do they. 😉
Armed forces? The state is the entity that goes to war. Their view could be useful.
Good point! The idea that the rank and file of the military should be silent servants of the state needs to be overturned, and in any case their views (as you say) on matters such as troop and equipment readiness, morale, justification for war (they’d have a unique perspective and would perhaps be the harshest critics of unjust wars), etc., would be invaluable (and need to be heard, rather than this subservient tradition of the military never answering back to government).
It’s those opposing reform who make it the centre of debate.
Almost all of them do so on the basis of wilful ignorance about the current Lords, misunderstandings so grotesque that they cannot be other than deliberate, doomsday predictions, self-interest, and a general obsession with tradition over function.
Most of them belong in the same boat as the characters you criticise on this blog.
The people who do want reform don’t deserve criticism for the failings and corruption of others.
I’m not criticising reform – I want it
BUT if it is to block other more essential reforms I can wait
That’s my point
What these ‘angels’ who favour reform do so only on the premise that they gain an advantage from it? Lets not pretend that the reform on the table is necessarily a step forward (regardless of how awful the current House of Lords is in terms of its composition, it could be a lot worse). With 15 year terms and single terms at that, the reforms proposed thus far do not look particularly compelling. Neither does the complete demolition of any learned voices (admittedly sparse, but still present in the House of Lords) in favour of yet more bungling ideologues doesn’t seem too wise to me. Reform is needed for sure, but reform in the wrong direction (aided by the acquiescence of anyone with genuine concerns) is hardly a step in the right direction. It’s more like 1 step forwards and 1.5 steps backwards.
I’m in favour of HoL reform but I don’t think it’ll get through this time because the Tory rebels will combine with Labour vote down the programme motion which sets a time limit for the debate… and then it will be talked out by filibustering.
Given that most of the Coalition’s legislative programme is so appalling, it’s actually pretty good news if a failed attempt at Lords reform eats up parliamentary time and derails other legislation, as most of the other legislation is dreadful. In a way it would have been good if the Coalition had spent 5 years trying to reform the Lords and not done anything else – we’d have been spared the privatisation of the NHS and the destruction of working age social security, for example.
In the long run, the party I really blame for failure to reform the Lords is the Labour Party. Labour has had about 30 years’ worth of majority governments since 1945 and has failed to introduce a democratic second chamber. For a supposedly progressive party, THAT is the real shocking fact.
That is telling it like it is Howard…
Is it ever the right time? One can always point to priorities which are ‘more important’.
We started to implement Beveridge with the Butler Education Act in 1944 while we were invading Europe. We also tried to change the voting system of the Commons in 1918 to AV and STV. In that year the franchise was tripled. About a third of men had no vote in 1914 as it was tied to property. And women over 30 attained the vote. Major changes while fighting a world war.
it needs to be done. We can do it now.
I’ll try to brief
The important decision is on which powers they are to have, rather than the composition.
A number of Lords or Senators selected by merit is fine with me alongside elected members. They can, as now, add quality and even some neutrality to debate s well as expertise and experience to committees.
The case for long terms and no re-election is that they are not worried about seeking popularity and getting votes. This is no true of the lot ‘in another place. It is arguable that this is a good thing. Fifteen years is too long, though.
To defeat a bill by the filibuster is deplorable. And why would Labour be obstructive? We expect it of the Tories. The electoral present system favours the bigger parties by exaggerating their vote. Are they trying to replicate this in the Lords?
I agree the present sort of works and there are higher priorities but i think this can and should be done now.
To my mind this would be a valid observation of apolitical (well, as apolitical as one can reasonably assume a cross bencher to be) member of the upper chamber. However, the thought of unleashing a myriad of ideological beasts, the likes of which stalk the halls of the House of Commons, to long (15 year) terms with no need to seek public approval or re-elections disturbs me greatly. I can’t see such improving the House of Lords at all, if democratisation is the order of the day (and it seems to be the case), I’d favour short terms (maybe even as short as 2 years; or 4 years, with half of the elected members up every 2 years) with a limit of 2 terms or higher. Ideologues NEED to be reigned in, and the only valid means I can think of is the public vote.
The House of Lords has traditionally been the plaything of the duopoly, through their ability to stack it in their favour whilst in power**. An elected House of Lords, whilst still useful to the two main parties, introduces an unknown and unwanted element in the form of the minor parties (Liberal Democrats, UKIP, Greens, Nationalists, etc…) who will be able to exert pressure on policy in ways distasteful to the duopoly powers (think UKIP vs the Tory front bench). Thus neither the Tories nor Labour have ever really been particularly enthused by House of Lords reform, at least not their frontbenchers (the ones who call the shots, as the lead oligarchs in our party political oligarchy). Both parties have, in the past, been reasonably certain that it’s only a matter of time before they are granted the privilege of office again, and then the House of Lords appointments machinery becomes theirs again.
** I suspect, though I’m not particularly familiar with the House of Lords appointment process works (beyond knowing that the resulting appointments stink), that their are measures or conventions in place to prevent transparent stacking of the House of Lords (i.e. appointing 50 Tory Lords, 30 Liberal Democrat Lords and 2 Labour Lords). However, I suspect that manipulation of the process takes place (i.e. appointing opposition and crossbench Lords that are more sympathetic to the views of the government of the day, etc…)