Following the raft of constitutional reforms in this Parliament, which the Government can be justly proud of, one of the big issues after the next election will be further reform of the House of Lords. Its members are now mostly appointed, following removal of the hereditaries, but our 1997 manifesto promised a second stage to create a ‘more democratic and representative’ upper house.
Reform of the House of Lords offers an opportunity to build a new upper house which will improve our legislative process and the accountability of government, thus improving the quality of democracy. A new Labour Government should be ambitious and make democratisation of the House of Lords part of a plan to deliver better government and help to breathe new life into Britain’s politics.
The UK’s present electoral system is designed to provide strong government of a single party with a clear majority in the House of Commons. A by-product of this strength is that legislative scrutiny tends to lack rigour in the Commons, where government is both drawn from, and controls, a disciplined party majority. The power of the whips in our party-based system means that complex bills are voted on when most members have not read them.
MPs are tribunes for their local communities but, as a result, have insufficient time to devote to the debating chamber. We need, therefore, an effective second chamber as a counterweight, with a more detached and independent perspective and an ability to scrutinise bills in detail. Good governments have nothing to fear, and everything to gain, from such an improvement to Parliament.
The House of Lords already has reflective and independent qualities, but has been marred by its composition, and thus prevented from playing its proper role. Who sits in the new second chamber is, therefore, very important.
There is a place in the second chamber for members who have not been directly elected. Life peers currently bring people to Parliament who are not willing to stand for election but whose skills enrich the legislative process. A limited number of appointees could be valuable, if they are chosen from a broader range of social backgrounds than the present Lords, and through a more transparent process free of accusations of cronyism.
But just as we have discarded lineage as a route to the second chamber, we must discard patronage as the primary route in the future. The hereditary peers were an embarrassing anachronism, but so would be a wholly, or largely, appointed upper house. To perform its functions effectively, and not fall into disrepute like the former chamber, a new upper house must be primarily based on election.
The form of elections needs to avoid the risk of rivalry with the House of Commons. But the suggestion of electing upper house members has been around since at least 1911, and there are many models available. I have argued in the past for constituencies based on issues or social, rather than geographical, allegiances. The Royal Commission, chaired by Lord Wakeham, proposed elections on the basis of nations and regions – which would tie in with devolution – for long parliamentary terms. Electing members for fifteen years, with one third elected every five years, would ensure that the upper house always lacked the fresh mandate of MPs and couldn’t therefore threaten the Commons’ primacy. Large constituencies – coupled with strict rules of conduct – would ensure that upper house members did not compete with MPs for constituency work.
The Labour Party will decide at this autumn’s Conference the direction it wants to take with House of Lords reform. It has a chance to support a proposal that the majority of members of the second chamber should be elected. The next Labour Government could then create a Parliament we can be proud of, which lives up to modern democratic ideals and works on behalf of citizens to ensure good government in the future.