The events of this week were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world.
The events of this week were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world
In a parliamentary democracy, the idea of a second chamber to revise primary legislation and to take a longer view than the main chamber sounds good in theory. And indeed, in the UK we are served by some distinguished legislators who sit in the House of Lords.
The problem is that no matter how hard they work and how effective their interventions might be, none of it can mask the lunacy of the way the House of Lords is constituted.
We’ve seen it again this week on two fronts. Firstly, the prime minister appointed an additional four peers. So as not to upset the gender balance, he was careful to choose three men and a single woman – thus ensuring the 75:25 split in favour of men in the Lords was preserved. One of his appointments appears to have been made in response to the politics of the day – in this case, immigration issues.
So a lawmaker is ennobled to help with the ‘optics’ of current politics. It’s all high-principled stuff.
Next we saw one of the more quirky aspects of an institution with more than its fair share of quirks: an election for a hereditary peer. There are still 90 places in the Lords reserved for people who have as their qualification for a peerage the mere fact of their birth.
So a micro constituency supplies the only people who are actually elected to the second chamber. To be a candidate one must descend from the aristocracy. It would be impossible to make this stuff up.
Despite the heroic efforts of the political class to thwart reform, changes to the House of Lords are inevitable for two reasons.
Firstly, size. In its report The Super-Sized Second Chamber, the Electoral Reform Society pointed out that the House of Lords was second in size only to the People’s Republic of China, who on last checking had a slightly larger population than the UK With so many political appointments of life peers having been made, the number of people eligible to sit, vote and claim the £300 tax-free allowance per day is 849 (minus a small number on leave of absence).
Not only are there not enough seats or office space for this huge number of lawmakers, but as former Conservative constitution minister Mark Harper has noted: “If we have one more change of government it is going to have over 1000 members.”
The truth is it will nearly nudge that number anyway when the Dissolution appointments are made at the end of this Parliament. David Cameron’s first three years as PM saw him appoint four times the number of peers than Gordon Brown did in his three years in Downing Street. And pro-rata Mr Cameron has appointed significantly more than Tony Blair.
The second reason why reform cannot be avoided comes from the impact the Scottish independence referendum has had – and will continue to have – on politics. The Westminster club in its current form is no longer seen as holding any credibility for the new politics needed to re-engage citizens. We need a citizen-led Constitutional Convention to bring democracy back to life right across the UK.
All the parties (and we are now in an age of five- if not six-party politics) have signalled their support for such a move, with the exception so far of the Conservatives. And it is difficult to see how the House of Lords can be left out of that conversation.
Scotland showed us that where the issues are relevant and real and where every vote counts, citizens have a deep desire to be part of their democratic future. The events of this week relating to the House of Lords were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world.
Darren Hughes is deputy chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. He was a New Zealand Labour MP and minister in Helen Clark’s government
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33 Responses to “We need to bring democracy back to life. Let’s start with the House of Lords”
Carl Gardner
I disagree. The last thing we need is a Constitutional Convention, whether “citizen led” or not.
Yes, we have constitutional anomalies that need to be changed. The House of Lords needs changing in digestible bites, like the big bite taken out of it in 1999, I think it was, when the hereditariness were mainly done away with. The obvious next steps are to abolish the remaining hereditariness, and to stop bishops coming in by right. After that, we could see what the consensus was about what should come next.
What doesn’t work, as Nick Clegg proved, was a “total vision” for perfect and complete reform aimed at pleasing everyone, and that actually pleased no one. One of the reasons a Convention is a bad idea is that it’d be bound to dream up a similar hopeless scheme.
The other thing that needs doing now, and can easily be done now, is for MPs to implement the McKay proposals, which offer a simple solution to the “English votes” issue. There’s nothing in them Labour need fear, and no need to play for time with a Constitutional Convention. Playing for time is mainly what it’d be about.
Any Constitutional Convention would be a playground for those who want to sneak things like AV back on the agenda, and who want to ride their own constitutional hobby-horses. It depresses me that Labour is indulging this rubbish.
Disenchantment with “Westminster” is actually discontent with current public policy – not with our constitutional structures. People in Dundee and Heywood do not vote Yes, or UKIP, because of the House of Lords. Labour needs to understand this, and develop social policies that address the real causes of discontent.
Andy Mills
My disenchantment with Westminster isn’t just with current public policy. It has much to do with the constitutional structures, which I see as atavistic, class ridden, grossly unbalanced, and anti democratic.
Leon Wolfeson
The Lords is a massive distraction from far more important issues like PR for Westminster, IMO.
somersetsage
if we are to have English votes then it needs to be on a similar basis to the Scots, Northern Irish and Welsh votes. All of the last three have a form of PR so that decisions are not made by minorities. First past the post might be justifiable in the two party system but we don’t have that any more in England. This means we have to look at the constitution as a whole. it is long overdue and the statute quo is sustained by vested interests.
Ian Duncan
No, let’s start with the House of Commons, where it really matters.