Tag Archives: House of Lords appointments

Lords reform is back on the agenda: what are the options?

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meg_russell_2000x2500.jpgSince December’s general election, proposals for Lords reform have abounded – emerging from both government briefings, and proposals floated during Labour’s leadership contest. Meg Russell, a well-established expert on Lords reform, reviews the wide variety of options floated, their past history, and their likelihood of success – before the topic may get referred to the government’s proposed Constitution, Democracy and Human Rights Commission.

Reform of the House of Lords is a perennial in British politics. Elections come and go, political parties often make promises to reform the Lords, and generally political obstacles of various kinds – or simply just other political priorities – get in the way. As indicated below, and chronicled in my 2013 book The Contemporary House of Lords, some proposals still under discussion have been mooted for literally hundreds of years. Occasionally breakthroughs occur: significant reforms included the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 (which altered the chamber’s powers), the Life Peerages Act 1958 (which began moving it away from being an overwhelmingly hereditary chamber), and the House of Lords Act 1999 (which greatly accelerated that process, removing most remaining hereditary peers). Since this last reform there have been numerous proposals, through government white papers, parliamentary committee reports and even a Royal Commission (which reported in 2000), but little actual reform. The last major government bill on Lords reform — abandoned in 2012 — was under the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition. Its sponsor, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, no doubt came to agree with renowned constitutional historian Lord (Peter) Hennessy, who has dubbed Lords reform the ‘Bermuda Triangle of British politics’.

Nonetheless, following December’s general election the topic is firmly back on the agenda. The Conservative manifesto flagged it as a possible matter for discussion by the promised Commission on the Constitution, Democracy and Human Rights (which is yet to be established). Various proposals from the government side have been floated in the media – the most eye-catching perhaps being a suggestion that the House of Lords might move to York. Meanwhile, other Lords reform ideas have featured in debates during the Labour Party leadership (and deputy leadership) contest. As often occurs, the topic has also been made salient by concerns about new appointments to the chamber. Continue reading →

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 →

The Labour Party’s long-standing lethargy over House of Lords reform

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s200_pete.dorey (1)Labour recently announced that any new peers it nominates must commit to abolishing the House of Lords. In this post, Pete Dorey discusses Labour’s track record on Lords reform and why the party has failed to enact serious reforms when in government, arguing that the subject has suffered from a lack of intra-party consensus and a lack of serious interest in reform at ministerial level.

It is a clear reflection of the political turbulence and febrile atmosphere wrought by Brexit that some prominent Conservatives, and pro-Conservative newspapers, have attacked the House of Lords for daring to obstruct ‘the people’s will’, with regard to tabling significant amendments to the EU (Withdrawal) Bill. Of course, there is delicious irony in such condemnation, given that support for Brexit has long been couched in a discourse about restoring parliamentary sovereignty, whereby Westminster, not Brussels, should be the locus of all political decisions affecting the British people.

That it is also Conservatives who have recently denounced the unrepresentative and undemocratic character of the House of Lords is even more ironic, not to say hypocritical, given that the Conservative Party has hitherto been a staunch defender of the unelected second chamber – bitterly opposing the 1999 removal of most hereditary peers – particularly when Labour has mooted reforms to render it more politically representative, and/or curb its (limited) power.

That such reforms have only occasionally and sporadically been enacted by Labour governments has not been due to Conservative opposition, however, but to disagreements within the Labour Party itself over the desirability and details of Lords’ reform. Condemning the socially and politically unrepresentative character of the House of Lords, and its veto power, has been easy for Labour MPs and ministers, but intra-party agreement on what exactly should be done to remedy these apparent defects has proved rather more elusive. There are four main reasons why Labour governments have only pursued House of Lords reform sporadically, rather than systematically. Continue reading →

We must address the House of Lords’ size, for the good of parliament

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Tomorrow the House of Lords will debate its size, which is widely criticised for having grown by almost 200 since the removal of most hereditary peers in 1999. In this post former Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza argues that change is urgently required to contain the number of peers, including placing limits on the Prime Minister’s patronage power, in order to maintain both the chamber’s ability to command respect and the wider effectiveness of parliament.

Tomorrow the House of Lords debates a motion ‘that this House believes that its size should be reduced, and methods should be explored by which this could be achieved’. The current membership of the chamber stands at over 800 (and substantially more when those temporarily absent are included). As the Constitution Unit’s work has frequently highlighted, there has been a steep increase in size since the chamber was last substantially reformed by the Blair government in 1999 – of a kind that is frankly unsustainable.

In the decade 1997-2007 a total of 374 new peers were created (i.e. 37.4 per annum). In the six years 2010-16, a further 261 peers entered the House (i.e. 43.5 per annum). Although some peers sadly die each year, and new voluntary retirement provisions were introduced in 2014, the number being appointed by the Prime Minister has far outstripped the number who have departed.

Of course the Lords was far bigger, with over 1,200 members, before the 1999 House of Lords Reform Act which excluded the majority of the hereditary peers from membership. But attendance then was fitful with some peers rarely, if ever, participating. Today with many more younger and active peers attendance it is at an all-time high – for several years now, average daily attendance has very significantly exceeded that  before the 1999 reform.

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Parting shots from the Lord Speaker: Baroness D’Souza reflects on the House of Lords and its future

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On Wednesday 20 July the Constitution Unit and the House of Lords authorities hosted a special event at which Baroness D’Souza reflected on her five years as Lord Speaker in conversation with Professor Meg Russell. The conversation covered the highs and lows of her tenure, as well as the issues of the size, composition and reputation of the House. Raffaella Breeze and Jack Sheldon report on the event.

At an event held on 20 July, organised by the Constitution Unit and the House of Lords authorities, the outgoing Lord Speaker Baroness D’Souza reflected on the highs and lows of her five years in the role in conversation with Professor Meg Russell, Director of the Constitution Unit. Baroness D’Souza also used the opportunity to address the pressing issues of the size and reputation of the House of Lords, indicating her own preferences for a cap on the size of the House and restrictions on Prime Ministerial patronage.

Baroness D’Souza is the second peer to hold the position of Lord Speaker, established under the Constitutional Reform Act 2005. Both Baroness Hayman, the inaugural holder of the office, and Lord Fowler, the former Conservative cabinet minister who will take on the role in September, were also present at the event. Baroness D’Souza recalled her objectives when she took office in 2011: to guard the reputation of the House, to expand its outreach programme outside of the UK, and to strengthen the relationship with the House of Commons. If Baroness Hayman’s role had been to create the position, hers was to develop and consolidate it.

The growth of the international outreach programme has been a particular feature of Baroness D’Souza’s tenure. She emphasised the vital importance of building institutional links with other parliaments, for example through exchanges of officials with parliaments in developing democracies, and opening up second channels of communication with countries where bilateral relations have gone sour, such as Russia and Taiwan. Baroness D’Souza spoke about how the international outreach programme had allowed her to pursue some of her other interests, such as promoting the role of women in politics. As Lord Speaker she had also pressed for more efficient, focused meetings of organisations such as the Inter-Parliamentary Union and Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

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