So here we go again, no sooner has the coalition government abandoned its ill thought out proposals for an elected House of Lords, than the ‘something must be done syndrome’ kicks in.

The familiar refrains get new airings, ‘the House of Lords is too big’, ‘the House of Lords is unrepresentative’ and so on, and the platitudes are simply rehearsed without really having any idea what the purpose or solutions to reform of the House of Lords might be.

Surely we have learned the lesson of the Clegg/Cameron proposals debacle, namely that ‘no reform of the House of Lords is tenable until the role, function and relationship with the House of Commons is clearly defined’.

It may seem attractive to simply reduce the size of the House of Lords by ending the right of the hereditary peerage to continue even in its restricted form, by expelling peers with a poor attendance record (so poor that they have no effect on how the House functions) and by the setting an arbitrary retirement age, (I immediately declare my interest as part of the ‘no spring chicken brigade’).

Those will do nothing to solve the conundrum of how to make the House of Lords an effective chamber or answer the ‘legitimacy’ question.

As far as the latter is concerned, the suggestion that nomination in future should be by ‘an independent appointments commission’ will lead to demands that, as they will be independent of party, they should have a greater right to challenge the House of Commons.

That assertion may be challenged by those who say that no such mantle has been placed upon the current peers in the house by virtue of the existing appointments commission. (There have been 47 who have arrived by this form of nomination since 2002; two have died and one has taken the Labour whip).

But these are seen as additions to the  House with the specific purpose of broadening the spectrum of membership and bringing in specific new expertise, sitting on the cross benches and not appointed with the intention ‘to take the politics’ out of the House of Lords, which is another tempting refrain.

Despite the assertion that membership should be capped, there remains the suspicion that reducing the size of the House of Lords will simply free up space for the appointment of more politicos.

Lord Strathclyde, Leader of the House has explicitly stated that the aim of the coalition government is that ‘the composition of the House of Lords should broadly reflect percentage of the votes as cast for political parties at the 2010 general election’.

Fine as an aspiration you might think, but it is such thinking which has led the size of the House of Lords to increase from 660 (down from 1330 after the cull of the hereditary peers) after March 2000 as a result of the House of Lords Act 1999, to its current size of 802 (including 37 on leave of absence and 14 ineligible to sit for various reasons).

It is common ground that between 1979 and 2010, when (largely) either the Tory or Labour party had substantial majorities in the Commons, the House of Lords became more assertive. Up until things began to change in 2000, the Conservative party always had a very large majority in the Lords, and although the coalition is still the biggest political grouping there, one can see that governments have been irritated by resistance from the Lords to their general programme.

Public attitudes towards the Lords have also changed over the period. The exponential growth of email traffic also shows that the public wish the upper house to take a more aggressive stance on government policy.  Far more emails are now demanding that government bills be stopped in their tracts or large chunks of a bill entirely removed rather than simply amended. The conclusion can be drawn that the House of Lords is still seen as having an important legislative role. Politics cannot be taken out of the House of Lords.

Accepting that there are strong voices advocating that the House of Lords requires modernising, how should that be achieved and when?

The first basic question which needs to be asked is, ‘do we need a House of Lords?’

It is interesting to note, as we have been reminded by Lord Morgan, that the traditional policy of the Labour party has been ‘abolition of the House of Lords’ (my own default position), and that ‘the demand for an elected second chamber is a very recent phenomenon.’

The other main discussion circles around whether an elected House of Lords should be fully or partially elected.  The proportion of those elected, how the transition is managed, or indeed if there should even be a transition period, is of secondary importance to the division of powers between two Houses.

There is no shortage of ideas.  George Foulkes (of Cumnock) has recently suggested that, ‘a constitutional convention would be set up to consider how an elected Lords would fit into our current system, taking account not only of its relationship with the Commons but also the devolved parliaments. My own suggestion to that commission would be a senate of about 450 members elected to represent the nations and regions of the UK with a different remit which leaves the directly elected Commons supreme’.

That suggests that the House of Lords would have either no or a diminished legislative role to play. If so why have elections for an advisory body, which could easily be comprised of members with a fixed period of office.

Whatever else happens, we cannot stumble and bumble along in the cozy delusion that cross-party agreement is achievable (possibly not even an inner-party agreement can be found).  This means a Royal Commission into the constitution is needed with the remit to produce a written constitution.  That is the imperative which faces us if we are serious about the need for change.

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Bob Hughes is a Labour peer and was  MP for Aberdeen North, from 1970 to 1997

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Photo: UK Parliament