As with AV the PLP is bitterly divided between passionate reformers making democratic arguments and equally passionate conservatives arguing that an elected upper house would challenge the primacy of the Commons.
Unlike the AV question, when the party outside parliament was as divided as the PLP, the wider Labour party has a clear and settled view on this one. The National Policy Forum, representing all the key party stakeholders, voted at the ‘Warwick II’ meeting in July 2008 for a wholly elected House of Lords.
As that is the view of the party, I hope it will be the case our frontbenchers make in parliament and that the whips will be making every effort to get every Labour MP and Peer to vote for it, and to stop Tory backwoodsmen delaying the legislation, when it eventually gets debated.
There is no argument that a democratic socialist or social democrat can honestly articulate that opposes an elected upper house. On the most simple grounds that people who help make the law should be elected by and accountable to the people who have to live under those laws, the presence of unelected legislators in parliament is a disgrace. While the removal of the hereditary element at least takes us out of the Middle Ages, appointment by patronage of legislators isn’t much more morally justifiable. Some, indeed most, of the current peers, are a great asset to parliament, bringing skills, knowledge and wisdom from life experience both inside and outside parliament. Labour could do a lot worse than to run the current Labour team of peers in any set of democratic elections to the upper house. But if we want them there we should have the right to select and elect them there, not have them picked for the job by the powers that be.
If the argument is that the Commons is uniquely capable of representing the popular will and must not be challenged by a second chamber, then that’s an argument for unicameralism, as practised in approximately half the world’s parliaments, and advocated by Keir Hardie and Tony Benn. It’s a perfectly valid case but personally I don’t think the Commons uniquely or perfectly represents the popular will (not least because of its flawed electoral system, but unfortunately I’ve lost that argument). There are other voices of the people deserving to be heard at a national level that are not limited to the Commons (if it’s perfect it shouldn’t mind a bit of competitive challenge), and I think MPs makes legislative mistakes which need amending or delaying. Basically I support constitutional checks and balances but I want them exercised by democratically elected representatives.
I also hope Labour’s parliamentary Leadership will try to remove some of the obvious flaws in Clegg’s current reform proposals. Clegg has got it right (the first time I think I’ve ever written that!) in saying the upper house needs a different voting system to the Commons, otherwise it will just duplicate it and not play a role in addressing the representational deficit caused by first past the post.
But the proposed 15-year term is too long. It would insulate the legislators concerned from public accountability – which voters would remember at the end of 15 years what actions and votes at the start of it they disliked? A six- or maybe seven-year term would give the required ‘senate-like’ distance from the day-to-day hurly-burly of politics but still deliver voters the chance to kick people out if they want to. The proposal that this lengthy term should be a one-off with no chance of re-election is also profoundly undemocratic as it means that there would never be any chance to hold members of the upper house accountable, so they could act with impunity, and it denies voters the chance to re-elect people who they want to see serve again.
With this qualification, I hope we will be pushing for a wholly elected upper house, to fulfil a Labour policy, agreed democratically by the NPF, and a democratic principle that all legislators should be elected.
Wake up and smell the coffee. Instead of Labour wasting its time and energies looking for solutions in search of problems we should be out trying to convince the public that it is safe to leave us in charge of the economy.
Yes but… What is wrong with current proposal, and the countless others before, is that they only focus on the elected / unelected choice, and not on the powers, which are to be unchanged. Can you answer the question of whether the Parliament Act should continue to apply to an elected chamber? But time spent considering this is probably not actually worth spending for the Labour Party given the rather greater challenges the country faces. I can’t see a need to give the proposal active support. Or any particular thought.
Elected House of Lords? Why? The concept of having two competing elected chambers of government is just ludicrous. We already have a perfectly adequate legislative chamber in the House of Commons without complicating matters by having a conflicting second chamber. The choice is to abolish the House of Lords completely or establish an appointed House that would exist purely as a scrutinising and advisory chamber and have no legislative or legal powers other than a parliamentary obligation to debate and ‘vote’ on government bills. Simples!
Having observed the excessive quantity and often poor quality of laws it churns out, decade after decade, and whichever party happens to have a majority, I’d say that the Commons is far from being “a perfectly adequate legislative chamber”. And it can’t be, because the governing party can almost always rely on whipping its MPs through the desired lobby however good the arguments on the other side, and in any case it can use its majority to control the timetable, curtail debate and make it difficult for opposing arguments to even be given a proper hearing.
By the way, it may be true that half of the world’s parliaments are unicameral, but how countries: A. Have a single chamber elected by FPTP, and B. No codified constitution which ranks supreme and which can be enforced by a constitutional court? To take something as basic as a constitutional guarantee that the next elections won’t be the last ever held, but while allowing elections to be temporarily postponed under extreme circumstances, for example during both world wars – at present, we rely for that on the Lords still having an absolute veto on any Bill to prolong the life of Parliament.
Good analysis, Luke. Two suggestions. The term could be for two parliaments, with 50% elected at each general election. At the first election half could be elected from the present house to give continuity, and half by national election. And we should promise to limit the numbers – I suggest 100, as in the USA. It makes sense, and pushing for less politicians would be popular.