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House of Lords Reform
Scott Bennett
Politics and Public Administration Group
30 November 1999
The place of a second chamber of parliament has long been argued in Britain.
The Blair Government is well along the path of bringing about the biggest
changes to the House of Lords since 1911.
Background to reform
In December 1998 the Lords had 1297 members, of whom 1166 were eligible
to attend Parliamentary sessions and to vote in divisions.(1) The total
membership was made up of hereditary peers (59 per cent), life peers
(37 per cent), Law Lords (2 per cent) and archbishops
and bishops (2 per cent). About eight per cent were women.
Hereditary peers comprised 55 per cent of those eligible to
attend.
In party terms, the 'eligibles' were:
- Conservatives (41 per cent)
- Cross-benchers (28 per cent)
- Labour (15 per cent)
- Liberal Democrats (6 per cent), and
- no identified group (10 per cent).
The 'hereditaries' comprised:
- Conservatives (47 per cent)
- Liberal-Democrat (4 per cent), and
- Labour (three per cent).
The House of Lords was long criticised as the Conservatives' 'long-stop',
wherein defeats in the Commons could be reversed by the permanent Conservative
majority provided by hereditary peers.(2) Although the average number
of legislative defeats in the Lords since 1970-71 has been 23 per session,
Labour Governments suffered 63 defeats per session. By contrast,
there were only eight defeats per session for Conservative Governments.
Despite its huge majority, the Blair Government had more defeats in the
Lords during 1998-9 than any government since 1979-80.(3)
The great survivor
The place of hereditary peers in the national legislature has been criticised
for many years-and their removal long signalled. Over 80 years ago
in the Parliament Act 1911, the Lords lost the power to delay or amend
money bills. It retained the power to delay non-money bills for up to
two successive sessions. The preamble to the Act signalled that even more
changes would be made:
it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as presently constituted
a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis.(4)
In the years after, no such change was made, due largely to the lack
of a wholehearted commitment by either party.
Since 1945 several small changes to the position of the Lords were made:
1949-the Parliament Act reduced further the power of delay of non-money
bills to one session only;
1958-the Life Peerages Act created a new category of peerage awarded
for merit, but which could not be handed on to descendants;
1958-Standing Orders were amended to allow for permanent leave of absence
from all House business for peers who applied;
1963-the Peerage Act allowed a peer to disclaim a title for life.
Labour caution
Labour has been divided over the most appropriate way of handling the
Lords 'problem'. There have always been a significant number keen to abolish
the chamber entirely, agreeing with eminent socialist British political
scientist, Harold Laski, who asserted that the upper house was 'an indefensible
anachronism'.(5) Others have preferred a more cautious seeking of reform.
Despite their ideological opposition to the very basis of the Lords power,
Labour Governments have sought to 'get on with the job' of governing and
not be distracted by accusations of them seeking to undermine British
institutions.(6)
In 1968 the Wilson Government sponsored a bill to create an appointed
second chamber in which the government of the day would have a small majority,
but long delays caused its abandonment in the following year. In 1976
a Labour member sponsored a private member's bill for abolition, and in
1978 the party's National Executive Committee also called for abolition,
though the party's 1979 manifesto made no such call. By 1989 Labour was
proposing an elected second chamber.
The 1997 election manifesto was less prescriptive, with the promise of
a two-stage process: abolition of the right of hereditary peers to sit
and vote, followed by a wide-ranging review of 'possible further change'.
The manifesto also asserted that, 'No one political party should seek
a majority in the House of Lords'. The Blair Government seems to prefer
a nominated to an elected body. (7)
The Tories and democracy
Conservatives, by contrast, have generally had a much more sympathetic
view of the House of Lords, many seeing it as an integral part of Britain's
parliamentary heritage. The former Foreign Minister, Douglas Hurd, for
instance, once stated that there was 'a very strong case for leaving it
alone'.(8)
Other Conservatives have not been averse to the idea of change. They
have, though, tended to emphasise an 'evolutionary' rather than 'radical'
pace. In 1978 a party committee chaired by former Prime Minister, Lord
Home, proposed a part-elected, part-appointed upper house. The idea disappeared
with the advent of the Thatcher Government, which ignored the question
of possible changes to the second chamber.
In 1998 the Conservative leader, William Hague, rejected the idea of
evolutionary change as inappropriately slow, and spoke of pushing for
unspecified changes in which 'democratic accountability' would be the
prime consideration.(9) The Conservatives thus began to sound more radical
in this matter than the Labour Party. Constitutional affairs spokesperson,
Liam Fox, has said that the reformed Lords should be stronger rather than
weaker, and should be able to delay legislation. A number of Conservatives,
including former Prime Minister Sir Edward Heath, have called for the
creation of a fully-elected upper house, a change that the Labour Government
seems unwilling to entertain.(10)
The Government moves
The Queen's Speech of 24 November 1998 referred to the Government's
intention of bringing down legislation to put in place the two-stage reform
referred to in the manifesto:(11)
- abolition of 'hereditaries', followed by
- creation of a new house.
In early December 1998 Prime Minister Blair wrong-footed Hague by making
a deal with the Conservative leader in the Lords, Lord Cranborne, for
the retention of ten per cent of 'hereditaries' in the interim House that
would be established during the first stage of reform. In return, the
Lords Conservatives agreed not to be unnecessarily negative towards other
parts of the Government's legislative package. Hague dismissed Cranborne
for acting without consultation, but the agreement stood.
The process
To date, the reform process has included the following stages.
On 19 January 1999 the House of Lords Bill was presented to the Commons.
Its few sections spoke of barring hereditary peers from the Lords, but
for the first time such peers would gain the right to vote in, and to
contest, Commons elections. The bill provided for the establishment of
transitional arrangements to aid the achievement of stage two, if the
Secretary of State so decided.
The bill passed the Commons on 3 February 1999, and received Royal
Assent on 11 November:
- most hereditary peers have lost their right to sit
- 92 hereditary peers will sit with life peers, Law Lords and bishops
in a transitional House,
- life peers will now be in the majority.
90 of the 92 'transitionals' were elected by their colleagues prior to
the passage of the legislation:
15 as deputy Speakers and other office holders;
75 others (42 Conservatives, 28 Cross-benchers, three Liberal-Democrats,
two Labour).
(Two ceremonial office-holders, Earl Marshall and Lord Great Chamberlain
were not elected.)
The shape of the final model?
The removal of the 'hereditaries' is likely to be the easy part of this
change. A Royal Commission investigating proposals for stage two, is to
report by 31 December 1999. A parliamentary joint committee
will then undertake 'a wide-ranging review of possible further change
and then to bring forward proposals for reform'.(12)
These bodies have difficult and interlocked questions to consider:
- the most appropriate role for a second chamber
- the relationship between the Commons and the Lords
- the appropriate method of selection of upper house members, and
- the possible use of the referendum in the process.
On these matters there seems to be little consensus, and this poses the
major threat to the eventual success of the whole reform effort.
It is planned that a fully-reformed chamber be in place by the time of
the next election (2002). The Conservatives, however, have questioned
whether the Government will ever produce a final model, suggesting that
it has no intention of moving to the proposed second stage. According
to this view, the Lords would simply become an emasculated body made up
of 'Tony's cronies'-a largely nominated, emasculated upper house of no
significance. A lot thus hangs on the contents of the Royal Commission's
report-and of the Blair Government's response
Endnotes
- 63 had been granted leave of absence, while 68 had not applied for
and received Writs of Summons enabling them to attend.
- Stuart Bell, How to abolish the Lords, Fabian Tract 476, Fabian
Society, London, 1981, p. 1.
- Richard Cracknell, 'Lords Reform: Background statistics', House of
Commons Research Paper 98/104.
- Preamble, Parliament Act, 1911.
- Harold Laski, Parliamentary Government in England, Allen &
Unwin, London, 1938, p. 111.
- Edward Heathcoat Amory, Lords a' Leaping, Centre for Policy
Studies, London, 1998, p. 8.
- House of Lords Briefing, 'Reform and Proposals for Reform', 29 January
1999; Guardian, 9 May 1999.
- Times, 21 July 1998.
- John Osmond, Reforming the Lords and changing Britain, Fabian
Society, London, 1998, p. 3.
- Daily Telegraph, 9, 16 February 1999.
- Modernising Parliament-Reforming the House of Lords', Cmd 4183, 12
February 1999.
- ibid.
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