It is amazing how otherwise well-informed commentators fall for “isn’t the House of Lords wonderful” complacency. David Seymour, former political editor of the Mirror Group, should surely know better.
In his recent list of “Unsung Heroes” in TOTAL POLITICS he drew attention to some very distinguished Peers. Unfortunately, he failed to check their record of activity. One has never been near the place since his introduction, 11 have voted in less than a third of the divisions (some in less than 10%) in the session which is about to end, several have only spoken a couple of times and four not at all. No doubt some may have become absentees because of age or infirmity, but others clearly value the title more than the contribution they can make here. The sooner we detach the honours system from work in Parliament the better.
The truth is that far from being the wise legislature of experience and expertise that Mr Seymour celebrates we are in danger of becoming an elderly debating society of ex-experts. The age profile is totally unrepresentative of the nation as a whole, just as the geographical spread is totally unbalanced in favour of London and the South East.
Sadly, most commentators enthuse about the House of Lords only because they despair of the tribal party antics and unrepresentative voting system for the Commons, which places MPs even further down the popularity tables than Peers.
The cross party proposals to give a reformed House some democratic mandate – far from causing its “total destruction” – will prevent the Government of the day from dismissing our views as the “unrepresentative prejudices of the unelected”. If Mr Seymour really values our contribution, and is not just looking for a nomination, he should support them!
Calm down dear..
And to ‘give the devil his due’, you are certainly having a rather beneficial effect on my habitual bete noire, Lord Mandelson..
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/nov/11/peter-mandelson-postal-services
Crikey, that is something approaching a ‘good idea’, and though it might slightly stick in my craw, I feel ‘Congratulations, Lord Mandelson’ is in order..
Crikey, first Paul Dacre, and now Peter – I must be turning soft in my old age…
Even if some of the aforementioned Lords rarely attend the House, they are still extremely good value for money! The average attendance, number of speeches, etc. in the Lords is much lower than in the Commons: attending a third of votes is average for all Lords, including the political ones. Even given your statistics, the House still works, so why change it to a system where the taxpayer has to pay out yet more in salaries for politicians?
Lord Tyler: You seem to think that not contributing regularly is a bad thing. If a member has nothing to say on issues outside their expertise surely it is better for them to stay quiet and not participate rather than talk about issues they are only getting to grips with. I would rather hear from someone once a year on an issue they know a lot about than every week when they have nothing worthwhile to say.
I would also be interested to know what second chamber in the world you think is representative of its society? Election to a reformed second chamber is unlikely to produce this form of representation in the same way it hasn’t produced social representation in other directly elected second chambers. On the issue of age, the Lords is not unusual in not being representative of age: US Senate has a minimum age of 30, France, Canada and Poland the same. Italy’s Senate has an age qualification of 40, and many others put a value on age and manturity.
I personally find it hard to believe, Lord Tyler; there are many second chambers out there which are directly elected which continue to submit to the lower house despite not being constitutionally required to do so. Spain, for example, or the one-day-a-week ‘First Chamber’ of the Netherlands, or the Polish Senate.
Moreover we’re not unique in having an unelected or indirectly elected second chamber. The German Bundesrat is made up of government ministers from the federal Laender; the French Senate is created by a college of MPs, local councils, and mayors. The Irish Senate is made of vocational groups. Canada is another famous example.
I can understand your frustration with the undemocratic nature of the second chamber, though. Okay, let’s say it is conceded; could you please provide your alternative program for reform? What would your ideal second chamber look like?
Please answer these questions:
1) how much would be elected? 50%? 80%? 100%?
2) what electoral system would be used?
3) what would the term of election be? Would it be fixed? Would it be phased (e.g 1/2 elected every 3 years)?
4) would there be scope for a second term?
5) what powers would it have? Co-equal with the House of Commons? Limited? Same as now? Why?
6) how would you compensate for the a) higher cost, b) reduced expertise, and c) more political nature of this House?
And finally…
7) what chances do we have of any of this wonderful stull actually being accepted by either of the top two parties?
No government will accept a reform which will cripple them in future. They’ll look to the strong chambers of Italy (though it’s an echo chamber) and Australia, and run off with burned fingers. They’ll favour something which helps them to extend their dominance of Parliament. Election will help them with this. It’s strongly arguable that the STV system in Australia’s Senate is a more draconian and arbitrary form of political patronage than the current system for the House of Lords.
I may be cynical, but I am thinking realistic, I believe.
I look forward to hearing your reply.
Dear Lord Tyler,
Another interesting post. There are lots questions I could ask in consequence of what you have written but I shalln’t waste my time as I know they will go unanswered.
Still, I should like to make one comment. I do wonder given your views on the House of Lords why on Earth you ever agreed to become a member of it. And if it is so bad you coud always opt to take leave of absence.
Howridiculous.
This strikes me as so internally inconsistent as to be ridiculous. You complain about experts because they don’t have much time to devote to the House of Lords and you don’t want ex-experts who do have the time. There’s no pleasing some people.
Surely ex-experts are more useful than ex-MPs?
If the House of Lords was elected would it not attract candidates who desire to be MPs but couldn’t hack it?
Lord Tyler, the problem with elected representatives is that they often seem to feel obliged to submit or pander to what they perceive to be the feelings of the electorate. We seem to have had much legislation proposed for political expediency rather than to do anything particularly useful. The Lords, unelected as they are, are a very useful brake on this (not their only function of course).
I would ask the same questions as Adrian Kidney. I would also point out that the Commons isn’t particularly representative – only 39% of the country didn’t vote (for whatever reason), and only one in five voted for the party that formed the Government. If we are to change things, let’s not start with individual components that are in fact doing a good job but rather concentrate on those components that aren’t.
Thank you for some very interesting comments and questions. I particularly want to answer the list Adrian Kidney put to me, since he has given a comprehensive exposition of the issues we have had to address when considering how best to reform the House.
First, in brief answer to other comments:
Jonathan: I suppose our fundamental disagreement is that the House “works” as presently constituted. Ministers are able – in the final event – to pull their trump card on us, as I know from my own experience as an MP: “the Commons is elected, you are not, we should not have to listen to you.” Besides, I believe it is a fundamental principle that people who make laws should be chosen by the people those laws affect. The present House is far from cost-free, since Peers can draw largely unaccountable tax-free allowances up to some £48,000 per year.
James: We considered whether there should be a minimum age in the reformed House. We concluded though that the other measures we would put in place (long, single terms, etc – see below) would militate towards a membership with experience, without the need to create an arbitrary age at which people would be entitled to stand. I doubt any legislative chamber is representative, in the sense of being completely reflective, of the society it serves, but we can certainly do a great deal better than a chamber which doesn’t even have a proper balance of members from different parts of the country.
Howridiculous: I am not suggesting that the House of Lords is a bad place, or that the work it does is bad. My argument is that it would be more effective if the way we got here was more legitimate. I accepted nomination largely to ensure there are voices arguing for reform inside as well as outside. This is one turkey ready and willing to vote for Christmas.
Noggin: My point is that we cannot venerate the performance of Peers who never attend or speak, and we should not be deluded that those who used to be in a particular position are any longer best placed to pronounce on public policy in relation to it. Meanwhile, whether “ex” or not, I return to the basic principle that experts in anthropology should not be entitled to vote on abortion, education policy, or civil liberties, or housing and so on.
Jezebel: The cross-party plans to reform the Lords address the issue of attracting potential MPs directly. See my answers to Adrian’s points below.
Adrian:
1 I would personally favour 100% elected – as voted for by a large majority of MPs of all parties – but we may well compromise with 80%
2 Senators (or whatever they are called) should be elected by Single Transferable Vote (STV) in multi-member constituencies so that voters (not parties) decide who gets to the top of the list, no party can win a majority in the reformed House and there is minimal party whip discipline
3 Each Senator should be elected for a fixed single 12 year term, in batches of one third every four years, at the same time as the devolved assemblies.
4 They should sit for one term only and not be eligible to stand for the Commons during that period or immediately afterwards, to avoid excessive party loyalty and to obviate the possibility of the Senate becoming a “training ground” for the House of Commons
5 All parties have agreed that the powers should remain as now, but Ministers would have to take more notice of votes and voices in the reformed House
6 Because there would be many fewer Senators than the present 740-strong Lords, and the tax-free allowances would go, the extra cost would not be so substantial; expertise properly comes from outside a representative assembly, its members needing good judgement to assess the relative merit of that expertise; with the proper safeguards (detaching the election of Senators from the General Election choice of Government, for example) there is no reason to fear increased politicisation – indeed the current House is largely dominated by the political parties where STV elections would give independents a good chance of success
7 The leadership of all three parties have agreed on the basic outline for reform, and the expectation is that they will include a firm commitment to this effect in their manifestos for the next General Election. I would be interested to hear more about the difficulties you have encountered with the use of STV in the Australian Senate, but I wonder if the “draconian and arbitrary form of political patronage” you refer to may result from the use of group ticket voting, rather than the actual system of STV. Parties are allowed to select a “preferred” list of candidates for the Australian Senate. I certainly oppose that, since the point of STV is to give the voter power to choose not just among the parties but among candidates within the parties
I try to keep abreast of these issues in my own website (www.paultyler.libdems.org) to avoid long screeds here, but I hope this is helpful.
Lord Tyler: Surely your point 4 rather confirms Jezebel’s suspicions as to the type of person who would seek election. I may have missed something, but it is difficult to detect any well-developed principles embodied in your response. One can’t simply cite legitimacy as if it is self-evidently the basis for change. There are different sources of legitimacy.
Lord Tyler, I believe MPs currently claim about five times as much in allowances as the Lords, for slightly fewer members. So even with far fewer Lords (I can’t bring myself to call them “senators”), full time members are likely to claim the same amount in allowances as at present. By the time you add salaries at the current MPs’ rate, plus national insurance, pension costs, etc. the cost of the upper chamber will have doubled.
Thankyou for your reply, Lord Tyler. I see you have a long list of desires for our hypothetical House.
I’ll leave point 1.
Point 2 – The law could feasibly give voters the power to change the list as you say, but experience shows around the world that most voters, being largely ignorant of the names on the list, tend to let the party’s list remain unchanged; only a few highly-inciteful voters will tweak it.
Party discipline in Australian politics is extremely tight. Some instances of ‘crossing the floor’ were seen 2005-7, but this was the first time since the mid-1990s that this was observed.
Point 3 – Fair enough, but statistics show that Scottish and Welsh Parliament electoral turnout barely reaches above 50%. In a clash between the two chambers, would it be plausible for the Commons to say *they* are the superior chamber thanks to their higher turnout at elections?
Point 4 – This will negate the attraction of the second chamber for young and up-and-coming politicians; it can also be used as a runner-up prize for candidates who failed to get elected to the House of Commons, like the Irish Senate does. How will this attract young, ambitious, and quality public people?
Point 5 – Just how likely will this be? Be honest.
Point 6 – Wrong; STV would give the *Liberal Democrats* a good chance of success. There are virtually no independents in the Australian Senate, in fact 1, and 3 Green party members.