One of the more remarkable (and foolhardy) feats of the Labour government has been the reinvigoration of the House of Lords. Where once the Lords was plainly absurd, stuffed with scions of the nobility who owed their place to some ancestor who had slept with a monarch, now their Lordships feel they have been made legitimate. It is no wonder they feel bold enough to challenge the Commons with such extraordinary regularity. They are using the powers they have always had - and using them more often and more assuredly. If the government’s next stage of reform gives us a fully appointed house by removing the 92 remaining hereditaries, the Lords will be unstoppable in their determination to overturn Commons legislation, especially if it is Labour legislation.
That is why we need to do two things: enact a new Parliament Act and elect the party peers. The old 1911/1948 Parliament Acts allow the Lords to delay legislation by a year by rejecting a whole bill or by insisting on amendments that are unacceptable to the Commons. That is why every year sees the ludicrous parliamentary ritual of legislative ping-pong, with ministers painfully considering which clauses to ditch to rescue their bill. The final deal is always portrayed as a climb-down by the government.
The role of the Lords should not be to insist on its version of a bill, but to ask the Commons to think again. A new Parliament Act should limit that power to a single request, so the Lords could send a Bill back in its entirety, once. Or it could send it back with amendments, once. But in the end the wholly elected Commons would be able to get its way.
Moreover, a new Parliament Act should include proper provision for dealing with business in the Lords in a timely and sensible way. The quaint Lords tradition of debating every amendment (on the floor of the House) and allowing everyone to speak is both ludicrously inefficient and open to abuse by those who merely wish to procrastinate and prevaricate. Neither aspect improves legislation.
Second, we should elect (at least) the party peers. The main reason for democracy is simple, of course. If somebody wants to tell us all how to live our lives - which is what legislation does - the least they can do is put themselves up for election. And with a new Parliament Act limiting the power of the Lords, there would be no danger of an elected second chamber replicating the Commons.
Some people argue that you need the Lords to be appointed if you are to maintain the calibre and the independence of its membership. But the truth is that the vast majority of the truly working peers - those who attend regularly and troop through the lobbies night after night - take a party whip. They are party peers and should surely be elected. As for the rest: nobody should have a seat for life, the bishops should be consigned to parliamentary history, and the total number of peers should be reduced by at least a half. Most importantly, the peerage should be divorced from membership of the second chamber, so that, at long last, we stop referring to Lord and Lady this, that and the other as if the Lords were in a class of their own.