The Brown commission’s proposals on reform of the House of Lords

Posted on March 1, 2023 by The Constitution Unit

In December, the commission chaired by Gordon Brown for the Labour Party proposed ambitious reform of the House of Lords, to create an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. In this first of two posts considering Labour’s options for Lords reform, Meg Russell dissects the proposals, in the light of previous UK and international experience. She suggests that the Brown report leaves much detail unspecified, making ambitious Lords reform unlikely before the second or third year of a Labour government.

The commission chaired for Labour by Gordon Brown, reported in December, proposing that the House of Lords should be replaced by an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. This post explores the merits of its proposals, and how feasible they are, as the first of two posts considering Labour’s options for Lords reform. The two posts summarise arguments in a report to be jointly published on Friday by the Constitution Unit, the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The Brown commission wanted a reformed House of Lords to underpin and strengthen the UK’s territorial settlement. Much of its report was focused on economic inequalities and the benefits of decentralising power, plus a desire to strengthen the Union and discourage separatism. The proposals for the second chamber appeared late in the report, after various proposed reforms to devolution, and were intended to tie the whole system together.

Whether such an Assembly of the Nations and Regions could successfully meet these goals would depend on three things: its functions, its composition, and the practicalities of implementation. Each of these is considered briefly below, in the light of previous Lords reform proposals, and overseas experience.

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The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill – a return to constitutional normality?

Posted on July 28, 2021 by The Constitution Unit

Alison Young argues that the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill transfers power from parliament to the government, and not to the people, and that it is wrong to place the blame for the extraordinary events of 2019 on the provisions of the Fixed-term Parliaments Act.

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) has not had a good press. So much so, that a promise to repeal the Act was included in the 2019 manifestos of both the Labour Party and the current Conservative government. However, as the second reading of its replacement, the Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill demonstrates, the apparent consensus ends there. There appeared to be two strong themes to the debate. First, how far does the FTPA’s replacement transfer power from parliament back to the government, or from parliament back to the people? Second, to what extent did the FTPA cause the difficulties – however defined – for the then Conservative minority government in 2019?

Turning back the clock

The FTPA placed the prerogative power of the dissolution of parliament on a statutory basis. It fixed the terms of the Westminster parliament to five years, setting the dates for general elections. It provided two ways in which parliament could be dissolved earlier. First, it was possible for two-thirds of the members of the House of Commons to vote in favour of an early parliamentary general election. Second, dissolution could occur following a vote of no confidence, if, within a two week period, it proved impossible to form a government which had received the backing of a vote of confidence from the House of Commons.

The Dissolution and Calling of Parliament Bill aims to return the Westminster parliament to the position prior to 2011. It repeals the FTPA (section 1) and ‘revives’ the prerogative power to dissolve parliament and to call a new parliament (section 2). However this is interpreted, it is clear that the bill’s intention is to ensure that parliament can be dissolved and recalled ‘as if the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 had never been enacted’ (section 2). Fixed terms of five years are now replaced with a maximum five-year term (section 4). Moreover, the bill seeks to make the dissolution and calling of parliament non-justiciable (section 3) – arguably making the prerogative powers even less subject to judicial review than was the case prior to 2011.

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FTPA Joint Committee lays down marker for the future

Posted on April 12, 2021 by The Constitution Unit

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 placed a legal obligation on the Prime Minister to make arrangements for a committee to review the legislation before the end of 2020. That committee was duly created, and published its report last month. Robert Hazell and Meg Russell offer a summary of the committee’s report, which was rightly critical of the government’s draft repeal bill, but argue that the committee ‘ignored’ the weight of the evidence in some key areas.

On 24 March the parliamentary Joint Committee to review the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 (FTPA) published its report. The committee was established last November under section 7 of the FTPA, which required the Prime Minister in 2020 to make arrangements for a committee to review the operation of the Act, and if appropriate to make recommendations for its amendment or repeal. The review was carried out by a Joint Committee composed of 14 MPs and six members of the House of Lords, and chaired by former Conservative Chief Whip Lord (Patrick) McLoughlin.

The government pre-empted the review by publishing a draft FTPA (Repeal) Bill a week after the committee was established. The Conservative and Labour manifestos in 2019 had both contained a commitment to get rid of the FTPA. As a result the committee focused a lot of attention on the government’s draft repeal bill. But the report devotes almost equal space to the FTPA and how it might be amended, in case parliament prefers to go down that route, now or in the future.

There was clear interest in the committee for retaining but improving the FTPA. The government had a bare partisan majority (11 out of 20 members), and not all Conservative members supported the government line. But the committee managed to avoid any formal votes, instead referring in parts of the report to the majority or minority view. On some key issues the majority view went against the weight of evidence received.

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