Earlier this year, I was asked to do a post on the role of ministers in the Lords. Normally the number of ministers sitting in the Lords is just over twenty, representing approximately twenty per cent of ministers. They usually include two Cabinet members (the Leader of the House and now the Chief Whip – previously it was the Lord Chancellor and the Leader); the Attorney General also sits in the House, as did her two predecessors.
Some commentators argue the case for not having ministers sitting in the Lords. I find this unpersuasive. Both the Government and the House benefit from their presence. Ministers who are peers have no constituency duties and so can devote more time than Commons ministers to departmental duties. They can ensure that the Government’s case is made and seek to persuade the House of its merits. The House benefits from having members who can answer for the Government and make sure the points made by peers are heard within a Department. The presence of ministers is one of several elements that make the House what it is and without which it would be difficult to be effective.
Another obvious advantage to the Prime Minister is the opportunity to appoint ministers through creating them as peers. This doesn’t always prove effective – the new appointees don’t always get the feel of the House – though some have proved their worth.
The quality of ministers varies, but overall they tend to be good. Some are effective performers. Lord Rooker, the Deputy Leader, is an engaging and open minister. Baroness Scotland, the Attorney General, has won some significant battles within Government. The House can prove a demanding environment in that ministers have to know their subject, and the House, in order to carry peers with them. It soon becomes clear when ministers aren’t up to the task and their tenure of office consequently can be short.
Given the disinclination to plant complimentary and throwaway questions in the Lords (at least in comparison to the Commons), I really don’t understand the logic of assuming the Lords should not have the right to accomodate Ministers. Surely the point of the Chamber is to scrutinise? How on earth do these people expect this to be achieved in a chamber at the mercy of the Whips?
I do wish people would actually bother to read a beginner’s politics textbook before they mouthed off.
Adrian Kidney: I agree with every word. I don’t see how we could engage in detailed legislative scrutiny – and have some impact on government thinking – without the presence of ministers. They may rely often on notes received from civil servants in the officials’ box but only the ministers can speak for government. The procedures of the House, designed to enable it to fulfil its functions effectively, are premised largely on the presence of ministers.
While I have your attention Lord Norton, and to divert the subject away from the Lords at the moment – I have been trying to find details on the Lascelles Principles lately, which are in a 1950s articles by the late Sir Alan Lascelles about the Sovereign’s rights in terms of dissolution of Parliament.
Do you know anywhere I could find the article to read? Or forward me information?
Thanks for this Lord Norton.
Do you think ministers in the Lords have as much political clout as those in the Commons? We don’t often hear about waves of Peers meeting ministers. I often wonder whether the Government take the view that ministers in the Lords are there simply to make up the numbers?
Adrian Kidney: Lascelles prepared a paper for King George VI in 1950 in case Clement Attlee, following the narrow majority achieved in the 1950 general election, requested a second dissolution. Lascelles considered that a monarch could not refuse a request for a dissolution unless three conditions were fulfilled: ‘(1) the existing Parliament was still vital, viable, and capable of doing its job; (2) A General Election would be detrimental to the national economy; (3) he could rely on finding another Prime Minister who could carry on his Government, for a reasonable period, with a working majority in the House of Commons’. I am not sure that Lascelles actually published an article on the subject, as opposed to having his paper variously quoted in publications on constitutional conventions and dissolution.
Paul: Ministers in the Lords generally do not have the same clout as ministers in the Commons. There are two reasons for this. Ministers in the Lords are mostly junior ministers and so cannot commit their Departments. Secretaries of State sit in the Commons; it is extremely rare for one to sit in the Lords. Also, senior ministers often have little knowledge of the Lords and this can extend to the capacity of junior ministers in the Lords; this is especially the case where departments have no minister of their own in the Lords and are covered by whips. Having said that, the impact of ministers in the Lords is not insignificant. Some exert influence by virtue of their own expertise and experience: as, for example, among current ministers Lord Darzi (Health) and Lord Adonis (Children, Schools and Families). One can also argue that ministers have an impact when reporting back to their Departments: ‘Sorry, the House won’t accept this’!
Dear Paul,
I imagine Lord Whitelaw was a member of the Lords who carried a bit of clout in both the Upper and the Lower House. He was certainly the Willie the Prime Minister of the day couldn’t do without!
On a more serious note, the good thing about ministers in the Lords is that they in effect cover the whole portfolio of a Department on a day to day basis whereas in the Commons ministers tend not to. This enables Lords ministers to speak with perhaps more perspective than junior ministers down the corridor.
Howridiculous.