Tag Archives: David Beamish

The Constitution Unit blog in 2018: a year in review

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2018 has been an interesting year for the UK constitution, its institutions and those involved in studying or working within them. As the year draws to a close, blog editor Dave Busfield-Birch offers a roundup of the most popular blogs of the year, as well as a look at the reach of the blog through the lens of its readership statistics. 

Obviously, Brexit has made this a very interesting time to work in political science, and the blog has benefited both in terms of increased general interest as a result, but also because there are niche topics being discussed in public now that would have generated little interest in other years. Few, for example, would have predicted in May 2016 that whether or not a motion in the House of Commons was amendable would become a hot political topic.

Below are our most popular blogs from the past year, as well as two personal selections from me, at the end of my first twelve months as blog editor.

Editor’s pick

‘Gendered Vulnerability’ and representation in United States politics by Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt.

This was obviously a tough decision, but if you were to ask me for my favourite post of the year, this would be my instinctive choice. Jeffrey Lazarus and Amy Steigerwalt discuss their new book, Gendered Vulnerability: How Women Work Harder to Stay in Office, which argues that women’s perception of a more difficult electoral landscape leads them to adopt distinct, and more constituent-oriented, legislative strategies than their male counterparts. It is a fascinating insight into the challenges faced by women in running for, securing and retaining office. A similar blog on the UK experience, entitled Strategies for Success, was written by Leah Culhane in November. Continue reading →

No end to hereditary peer by-elections in the House of Lords?

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downloadThe House of Lords is not entirely unelected; July saw two new peers appointed following elections involving a very small, select group of electors. In this post, former Clerk of the Parliaments David Beamish discusses the process by which hereditary peers can be elected to the Lords, how the system came to exist, and the continuing efforts to remove the remaining hereditaries altogether. 

It was announced on 18 July that Lord Bethell had been elected to fill a vacancy among the 90 elected hereditary peers in the House of Lords – the 34th such vacancy to be filled by means of a by-election. The vacancy arose from the retirement of the Conservative peer Lord Glentoran (the House’s only Winter Olympic gold medallist) on 1 June. These by-elections are conducted using the alternative vote system and, despite there being 11 candidates, Lord Bethell did not need any transfers of votes, receiving 26 of the 43 first-preference votes cast by Conservative hereditary peers.

This was the second by-election this month: on 4 July the Earl of Devon was elected to fill a Crossbench place vacated by the retirement of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley, grandson of Stanley Baldwin and a tireless campaigner against water fluoridation. The Earl of Devon received 7 of the 26 first-preference votes of Crossbench hereditary peers and it took five transfers of votes for him to be elected.

Viscount Mountgarret was a candidate in both by-elections, receiving no votes in either. His optimism when deciding to stand the second time might have been fuelled by the success of the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who was elected by the whole House in 2014 and sits as a Liberal Democrat, having previously been an unsuccessful candidate in a Crossbench by-election in 2011 and in Conservative by-elections in 2011 and 2013.

At least one more by-election is in prospect: Lord Northbourne, a Crossbench hereditary peer, has given notice that he will retire on 4 September.

Where do by-elections come from? The House of Lords Act 1999

The present arrangements whereby 92 hereditary peers sit in the House of Lords derive from the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed most of the 750 hereditary peers but provided, under the so-called ‘Weatherill amendment’, for two office-holders (the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain) and 90 elected hereditary peers to continue as members. The 90 comprised 15 peers willing to serve as deputy speakers or committee chairs, elected by the whole House, and 75 peers representing 10 per cent of the hereditary peers in each party or group: 42 Conservatives, 28 Crossbenchers, 3 Liberal Democrats and 2 Labour peers; they were elected by the hereditary peers in their respective groups. Continue reading →

What is the Salisbury convention, and have the Lords broken it over Brexit?

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downloadThe European Union (Withdrawal) Bill returns to the Commons today for consideration of the numerous amendments made during its eventful passage though the Lords. Some commentators have accused the Lords of exceeding their constitutional authority, with the Salisbury convention being cited in defence of this position. David Beamish discusses how the convention operates and argues that the Lords have not breached it so far.

The European Union (Withdrawal) Bill has prompted much discussion of the role of the House of Lords in passing legislation, including references such as this to the Salisbury convention:

‘ …the Lords has effectively torn up the Salisbury convention: that manifesto promises by the governing party should not be blocked by an unrepresentative upper house’.

That passage, from an article in The Times by Matt Ridley, who sits in parliament as an elected hereditary peer, relates to the amendments made by the Lords to the Withdrawal Bill and in relation to the proposal for a ‘Leveson Two’ inquiry. A day later, Iain Martin wrote in The Times:

‘This week there was the worst illustration of the problem yet. The Commons thought that it had settled the question of press freedom, when it voted against moves to hold yet another inquiry into the press. But the Lords had another go on voting down the government, in breach of the convention that bills which enact manifesto commitments should be passed by the Lords.’

It is perhaps ironic that this ‘convention’ is now being cited in relation to the difficulties which the House is making for a Conservative government. It was originally introduced by a Conservative opposition which dominated the House of Lords following the election in 1945 of a Labour government with a large Commons majority but only a small representation in the Lords, which then consisted entirely of hereditary peers.  Continue reading →

Report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the size of the House of Lords: a real opportunity for progress on reform

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Yesterday saw publication of the report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House of Lords, which recommended moving to a chamber of no more than 600 members, appointed for 15-year terms. This follows years of controversy about the growing size of the Lords, which currently stands at over 800. Sir David Beamish, formerly the most senior official in the House of Lords, argues that the proposals offer the best opportunity for years for some small progress on the knotty issue of Lords reform.

The recommendations of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House of Lords, published yesterday, offer the best opportunity for many years to reform the membership of the House of Lords in a way that can – and should – achieve sufficient consensus across the political spectrum. The committee’s recommendations for reform without the need for legislation are both thoughtful and ingenious.

House of Lords reform has usually been stymied by lack of agreement on what should replace the existing second chamber. It has generally proved impossible to get a majority for any one proposed reform. The most striking exception was the removal of some 650 hereditary peers in 1999, thanks to the 1997 Labour manifesto having included a specific commitment. But that was billed as the first stage of a two-stage reform, and that second stage remains elusive.

The 1999 Royal Commission on Reform of the House of Lords, chaired by Lord Wakeham, undertook what might be called a ‘zero-based review’ of the second chamber, looking at what functions were appropriate to a second chamber, what powers were needed to perform those functions, and only then how the second chamber should be constituted. It was affirming for the House of Lords that the recommendations on functions and powers were generally for little change – a proposal for a Constitution Committee was quickly implemented without awaiting wider reform – and ever since then the debate on Lords reform has focused primarily on composition. The issue of powers resurfaced briefly after the House upset the Conservative government in October 2015 by failing to approve the Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations, leading to a review by Lord Strathclyde of the Lords’ powers in relation to secondary legislation. However, the Brexit referendum led to a change of priorities, and Lord Strathclyde’s proposals were put on the back burner. With the government’s loss of its Commons majority in June 2017, it seems unlikely that those proposals could now be implemented even if the government wished.

Against a background of no likelihood of major Lords reform in the next few years, the impact on the House of large numbers of appointments of life peers by successive prime ministers (with the honourable exception of Gordon Brown) became a matter of serious concern to members. The increase in numbers led to increased costs, pressure on resources (including seating in the chamber – attendance at prayers boomed when members realised that that was the only way to be sure of a seat at question time), and a significant negative impact on the House’s reputation.

Continue reading →