Tag Archives: house of lords appointment commission

Why Labour should adopt a two-stage approach to House of Lords reform

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Today the Constitution Unit publishes a report jointly with the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute on the options for House of Lords reform. Here, in the second of two posts summarising its conclusions, report author Meg Russell argues that if Labour wins the next election, it should pursue a two-stage approach. This would begin with immediate urgent changes to the appointments process and hereditary peers, while the party consulted on larger-scale proposals such as those set out in the Brown report.

Today the Constitution Unit publishes a new report, House of Lords reform: navigating the obstacles, jointly with the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute at the University of Cambridge. This is the second of two posts summarising some of the report’s conclusions, with a particular focus on Labour’s options for Lords reform.

The previous post explored proposals from Labour’s commission chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. It suggested, on the basis of past UK and international experience, that large-scale reform of this kind will be difficult to achieve, and could not be actioned by Labour immediately. The Brown report leaves many open questions on which careful consultation and deliberation would be required. Meanwhile, there are clear problems with the House of Lords which are widely recognised, and would be relatively straightforward to deal with. This post focuses on such beneficial small-scale changes, including:

  • placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords
  • agreeing a formula for the sharing of seats
  • introducing greater quality control on appointments
  • removing the remaining hereditary peers.

More detailed consideration was given to the first three of these options in another recent post on this blog. Hence this one deals with them quite briefly, then draws the strands together, considering a possible strategy for the Labour Party on Lords reform if it comes to power.

Placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords

One of the most visible difficulties with the House of Lords is its growing size. Reform by Tony Blair’s government in 1999 removed most hereditary peers, slashing the chamber from more than 1,200 members to 666. But since then, its size has crept gradually upwards again. There was a net growth of around 70 members under Blair, and well over 100 under David Cameron – though Gordon Brown and Theresa May each presided over net reductions of around 30 members. Boris Johnson’s appointments were also excessive, and concern remains about his possible resignation honours list. Currently, the size of the House of Lords hovers around 800.

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Must a caretaker government be a zombie government?

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During the recently concluded Conservative leadership contest, the government appeared to be in a holding pattern, taking little or no action of substance until the election of Boris Johnson’s successor. But did the government, which had a substantial parliamentary majority and an electoral mandate, need to act as if it was merely a ‘caretaker’? Robert Hazell explains that the rules around a ‘lame duck’ PM remain fuzzy, and argues that steps must be taken to clarify the position as soon as possible.

Something very strange happened at Westminster over the summer: a government which enjoyed a comfortable working majority of 71 seats was declared to be a caretaker which could not take any major decisions. It was variously accused of being a ‘zombie government’ ‘asleep at the wheel’, and incapable of taking urgent decisions required by the energy crisis. In its defence the government might have responded that as a caretaker it was precluded from taking such decisions. But the Whitehall rules on this are far from clear. So, what are the Whitehall rules about caretaker governments, and the principles underlying them? And given the confusion this summer, do the rules need clarifying or updating?

‘Caretaker government’ is not a term to be found in any UK government guidance. The Cabinet Manual talks instead about ‘restrictions on government activity’. A leadership election in the governing party is not one of the circumstances when the Cabinet Manual says government activity must be restricted. It envisages just three such circumstances when governments are restricted:

…governments are expected by convention to observe discretion in initiating any new action of a continuing or long-term character in the period immediately preceding an election, immediately afterwards if the result is unclear, and following the loss of a vote of confidence.

Paragraph 2.27.
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Reducing the size of the House of Lords: two steps forward, two steps back

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downloadThere has for some time been an apparent consensus in parliament and government that the House of Lords has too many members, yet recent efforts to effect reform have made little progress. David Beamish explains how an apparent change of government position and the parliamentary tactics of a determined minority have slowed the pace of change.

There has long been concern, both within parliament and outside it, about the number of members of the House of Lords – currently over 780. The prospect of major reform seems remote. However, there have been two strands of activity to try to reduce the numbers: the proposals of the Lord Speaker’s committee on the size of the House (the Burns committee), and a private member’s bill to end by-elections to replace hereditary peers (the Grocott bill).

In November 2017 I wrote a blog post describing the publication of the report of the Burns committee as ‘a real opportunity for progress on reform’. In July 2018 I wrote another blog post on the continuing hereditary peer by-elections in the House, ending with the comment that, although other issues currently dominate the political and parliamentary agenda, ‘there may nevertheless be some prospect of real progress in relation to both the size of the House of Lords and the ending of the hereditary peer by-elections’. Subsequently there was heartening progress on both fronts, but last month saw two reverses. Continue reading →