When I spoke at Chingford Foundation School last week, I asked the pupils how many members they thought there were in the Lords and which party had a majority.   Most underestimated the number and tended to the view that the Conservatives had a majority.   This is a not uncommon response.  Audiences tend to be surprised when I explain that there are three groupings of roughly equal size – Labour, Conservatives,  and the Cross-Benchers – plus the Liberal Democrats with almost 80 members, the Bishops and the Law Lords. 

For the Government to carry the House, it has to persuade other groupings in the House to support it.  If it persuades the Conservative Opposition to support it, then it is going to win.  However, if the Opposition votes against it, it has to rely on the Liberal Democrats and/or the Cross-Benchers to support it.  For reasons I have touched upon before, the Liberal Democrats tend to carry disproportionate weight as they are more likely to vote – and to vote in a unified way – than the Cross-Benchers.  As Meg Russell and Maria Sciara conclude in their article on ‘Why Does the Government get Defeated in the House of Lords?’: ‘The 1999 reform created a chamber in which no party had overall control, and has thus increased the number of veto players in the British political system.  In particular, the Liberal Democrats have gained a new importance in British politics that has not yet been widely appreciated’.

As an illustration of how the balance is held primarily, but not exclusively, by the Liberal Democrats look at the results of two divisions held earlier today.   The Government was defeated in both votes.

On a Conservative amendment to the National Insurance Contributions Bill, the figures were:

Content: Con 110, Lib Dem 52, Crossbench 25, Other 2.  Total 189.

 Not Content: Lab 125, Crossbench 7, Other 1.  Total 133.

On a later Conservative amendment to the Pensions Bill, the figures were:

Content: Con 81, Lib Dem 43, Crossbench 10, Other 2. Total 136. 

Not Content: Lab 119, Crossbench 13, Other 1. Total 133.

From these figures, there are several observations to be drawn: the Liberal Democrat turnout exceeds that of the Cross-benchers; the Cross-benchers are divided (almost dividing 50/50 in the second division); had the Liberal Democrats voted in the other lobby on each occasion the Government would have won; had three or more Cross-benchers moved from the Content to the Not Content lobby in the second division the Government would have survived, but even if all 25 Cross-benchers voting Content in the first division had switched it would still not have saved the Government.

No Bishops took part in either division.  The ‘others’ are non-aligned peers, not part of the Cross-benchers.   In these particular divisions, there were no members voting against the party line.

For anyone interested in the Russell/Sciara article, an abstract can be found at:

http://www.palgrave-journals.com/bp/journal/v2/n3/abs/4200064a.html

The full article can also be accessed via the Constitution Unit webpage on the University College London website (http://www.ucl.ac.uk).