I’ve been meaning to respond to some of the comments on our mini-debate about the merits, in principle, of reforming the House of Lords. I’ve recently been caught up in the Joint Committee on Constitutional Renewal, doing some detailed work on the role of the Attorney General. That’s all still confidential at the moment but watch this space. Meanwhile, I apologise that this may be a bit lengthy but I think all those who have commented deserve a response.
Adrian Kidney is right to say that ‘majority will’ is neither the sole way of legitimating a decision, nor the only way. But reform of the House of Lords is not just about parliamentary majorities, it is about popular mandates. Reform was promised in all three Labour manifestos since 1997, in Tony Blair’s My Vision of a Young Country in 1996 and the Conservative Party have also endorsed reform (though, as you see, Lord Norton has not). Polling evidence suggests overwhelming public support for change, and separate evidence that people value the work of the present House only improves the case for making sure the views of the second chamber cannot just be ignored as “undemocratic”.
I want to debunk the idea that elected chambers necessarily suffer because they may have less specialist expertise. We elect representatives to take decisions (crucially – to vote) on a whole raft of issues, and we couldn’t possibly expect any parliamentarian to be an expert on all of them. Instead, we elect people whose judgement we trust and whose political instincts we support. If they do their jobs properly, they will seek expertise on any issue on which they need advice to inform their decisions. Indeed, the House of Commons has now started routinely taking evidence on Government Bills before it starts the detailed line-by-line scrutiny process.
The House of Lords does certainly benefit from a range of former professionals of all kinds sitting on its benches, but most are just that: former professionals – ex-experts. And even if they were not, why would we give an expert on embryology a vote in Parliament on education? Or an expert on constitutional affairs a vote on Crossrail? We still have some Peers who get to vote on all these issues just because their father was able to, because their fathers were appointed by a former Monarch or owned acres of land. This absurdity should surely end, and the answer is not to convert the 18th century hereditary principle to 19th century political patronage. For the 21st century, we should open our Parliament up, and let the people decide who sits in it.
An elected House would not increase the power of the Whips, since the White Paper proposals (agreed in the Cross Party Group) are for Members elected for one long term of 12-15 years. Since they will not be seeking re-election, they can be free of party direction. There will always be a balance to strike between independence and accountability. A proportional voting system for the new chamber (I would call it a Senate) would ensure a wide range of political opinions and would virtually guarantee that no one party ever enjoyed a majority of seats. Indeed, the White Paper proposes elections in tranches of one third each, so a party would have to win more than 50% of the vote in three successive elections to gain a majority. We have argued for the Single Transferable Vote system, already used in Scottish local elections, and Irish Parliamentary Elections, which allows voters to choose between candidates of the same party, as well as among different parties. It is likely to return more women and more independent members to Parliament, since the voter can express more than one preference on the ballot paper.
On Sir Patrick Cormack’s dissembling over the result of the Commons vote in March 2007, I’d simply say that you cannot play fast and loose with parliamentary majorities in that way. Simply because it was a free vote does not mean that is any less significant than any other Division. If you challenge this one, why not challenge all the others? A substantial majority for an all-elected House is just that, whatever cavilling people later engage in after the fact.
As for ‘core accountability’, that is simply an argument for concentrating power: a principle many of us reject. Why not, after all, concentrate power in the hands of a single person (an autocratic President?) and ask them to wield it, safe in the knowledge that they could be ejected at the next election? The answer is that successful democracies need power to be dispersed and checked. I suspect Lord Norton is keen to quote Karl Popper to his students; Popper said, “It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy.” But it’s no good to be able to sweep away a bad government once it has already made key mistakes, taken us to war on a false prospectus, threatened civil liberties, wasted money, or widened the gap between rich and poor. Besides, what a negative approach to the world it is to say that democracy is all about dismissing people once they’ve got things wrong, rather than electing the people you trust to get things right.
Finally, Would I stand for an elected House? I am just under the average age of Peers at the moment, but I anticipate – by the time reform kicks in – I well over the sell-by date for Senators!
On some of your points:
We now know that manifestos are ‘aims’, not binding promises, thus we can now ignore those pointless cards Prescott used to hold up at every conference.
Polls are pointless, too, on a subject that few have a clue on. I would suggest any poll that asks about reform of the HoL asks a few basic questions on the HoL before proceeding further.
Tony Blair also published ‘Valuing People’. Much good that’s done.
You assert that we elect people we trust and support their political instincts. I challenge that and have said earlier let’s see what the Commons would look like if we removed the party tags from the voting slips.
Hereditary peers are people, too, you know. They may well be responsible for thousands of people and jobs and a fair few will have inherited the sense of responsibility lacking in careerists.
It takes me about 15 minutes to ‘convert’ those who may have believed an elected second house is a good idea and I know next to nothing about the slippery arguments. All it proves is that they know less than me.
This argument is similar,in some ways, to those on the EU: the majority of people can’t be bothered to find out what they actually believe, and there are few charismatic people to debate the issues in such a way that we can all understand.
I’ll consider your post in full shortly, Lord Tyler (I feel quite honoured to have been directly mentioned! Thank you!), but I would first, while I think of it, take issue with your claim of manifestos as popular mandate.
People do not vote on manifestos – they are a *proposition* by the politicial party as to how they would like to govern. They are in no way a *promise* or a chance to expression national will. Their aims are just too diverse to claim popular will for any one thing.
By your reckoning, the popular outcry against Poll Tax at the start of the 1990s was unjustified, as it was in the Conservative Party manifesto. Similarly, the Lords rejected calls for it to force the Government (as if it could) to call a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, by reason that they ‘promised’ it in their manifesto in 2005 – I strongly reject, therefore, your argument of manifesto as popular will.
More soon…
You say:
“I suspect Lord Norton is keen to quote Karl Popper to his students; Popper said, ‘It is wrong to ask who will rule. The ability to vote a bad government out of office is enough. That is democracy.’ But it’s no good to be able to sweep away a bad government once it has already made key mistakes, taken us to war on a false prospectus, threatened civil liberties, wasted money, or widened the gap between rich and poor.”
This is the pot calling the kettle black especially from a Liberal peer.
The mistakes happen because the House is enfeebled and cannot effectively challenge the Commons especially on money. Do the right thing and return constitutional power back to the House of Lords and allow it to scrutinise money bills and offer real opposition to the ambition of the Commons.
Having said this it would be very unlikely of any political peer promoted from the Commons to do this or seek for it to be done. The same principle applies to life peers who owe their status as peers to an offer from the Commons. Do they have divided loyalties?
Only the hereditary peers are free of such partisan entanglements as their allegiance is to the House and the Monarch alone. The Commons continues to remove such from the House as it attempts to reshape it in its own image. Democracy alone has never endured down the ages. Our brand of democracy has; it has survived for 800 years because it has been a balance of two houses both with real power.
We should not be seduced by the United States of Amnesia, a nation that at conception feared the principle of a British House of Lords and arranged for its own upper house, the Senate, to be hobbled.
Ref:
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/5/14/legendary_author_gore_vidal_on_the
I was going to elaborate further but I think my main points have already been touched upon.
However – Senex, it’s interesting to note that the United States Senate was originally not elected either – it was comprised of Senators appointed from State legislatures. It was only at the turn of the 20th Century that this was changed with the XVIII Amendment. There are calls now for its repeal.
Lord Tyler, Senex and ladytizzy make some good points which stand fine on their own, but I would like to take particular issue with one of your remarks:
“the answer is not to convert the 18th century hereditary principle to 19th century political patronage. For the 21st century, we should open our Parliament up, and let the people decide who sits in it.”
I really, really dislike it when someone’s argument is basically ‘it’s old, let’s change it’.
Constitutions should *never* be subject to something as crude as a calendar. It’s arbitrary, false, and outrightly simplistic. Elements of a governmental system should be taken on their merits, not their age, and I’m sorry, but if the Lords offends you for its anachronistic tone, it’s hard cheese from me. There’s a good reason why the British Constitution is so old and so enduring – because it works.
Oh, sure, it’s changed to be something well nigh unrecognisable from what Henry VIII would have encountered, but this is because the British school of reform is that of change only when it’s necessary and clearly desirable. We do *not* subscribe to the French school, of change for change’s sake, based on abstract notions and principles which are noxious and nebulous.
This is precisely why Britain is the only country to not have suffered something so painful as a revolution destroying the old regime. While we had change come slowly and carefully, altering here, reversing there, other countries either doggedly refused any change, or worse, like France, changed it at the drop of a hat. While I admire France and think their revolutionary period had some admirable ideals and they are a much maligned people, they’ve had eighteen constitutions in two centuries. Eighteen. It’s absurd.
Until the House of Lords singularly fails in its duties (and general sentiment is that it is not), or aids in the creation of a tyranny (which I don’t see happening), we should put the calendars away under lock and key.
Lord Tyler, I trust the question mark in your post title does not imply you believe that having expertise precludes having judgment and vice versa!
On your point about Karl Popper, surely we electors do elect people trusting, or rather hoping, they will do the right thing, or rather not do the wrong thing, but we have the safeguard that when they do do the wrong thing we can get rid of them. It is true surely that the ability of the electorate to get rid of those they elect is the most important aspect of democracy?
Lord Tyler,
Thank you for the attempt at a response to my comment but it was just as enlightening as that made by the Lord Chancellor – or even less so. You say “Simply because it was a free vote does not mean that is any less significant than any other Division”, but the reference was to tactical voting. Free votes should surely carry more weight than Whipped votes – unless there is tactical voting which can obscure the result (be it in the Chamber or in constituencies). I fear asking you to explain the February 2003 vote would only serve to confuse matters.
I appreciate that the nature of blogging militates against this, but it would help your argument if you gave some sources for your statistical assertions.
Finally, in light of Senex’s comment, along with election, do not the Liberal Democrats favour a stronger House? Should not the 1949 Act if not the 1911 Act be repealed (given the preamble to the 1911 Act) if there is a House/Senate with an as good, if not better, mandate?
If one takes the time to watch Vidal Gore in interview he alludes to Aristotle’s belief that democracies ultimately fail because the people become corrupt. He suggests this may have begun in America.
Aristotle was a student of Plato and we only have his work available to us because of translations by Islamic scholars in Spain, during the 1100 to 1200’s. I’m not sure if Plato came to us via the same route?
What seems more than coincidence is how our democracy over 800 years has tracked Plato’s thoughts on ‘The Dialectical Forms of Government’.
Quoting from Wiki:
“Plato spends much of ‘The Republic’ narrating conversations about the Ideal State; but what about other forms of government? The discussion turns to four forms of government that cannot sustain themselves: timocracy, oligarchy (also called plutocracy), democracy, and tyranny (also called despotism).”
Again Gore alludes to the fact that this was very much on Benjamin Franklin’s mind when he delivered a Republic to a free America. This must also have been on the mind of Thomas Jefferson too when he said “Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms (of government) those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny”.
Jefferson also warned that, “All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent”. Our electorate have largely remained silent. Is this the corruption of people that Gore alludes to?
Without a fully empowered House of Lords we enter the realm of tyranny. The House is our last best hope of avoiding the political abyss. If the people are corrupt, the tyranny will happen. Is this prospect also stirring up fundamentalist Islam?
The Commons has for a long time enticed voters with promises of bigger and better everything, as a result the cost base of the nation has steadily risen whilst the House has slumbered. The current Prime Minister and his predecessor have rattled their sabres whilst holding onto the skirts of America. Published MoD budgets are subjected to creative accounting hiding their real costs. Habeas Corpus the basis of Magna Carta is in the process of being destroyed.
Perhaps all of this is simply the wheel of history turning?
Ref: Theory of universals, The Dialectical Forms of Government
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Republic_(Plato)
Ref: Practical uses of knowledge
http://www.islamicspain.tv/Islamic-Spain/Transfer-of-Knowledge/The-Heritage-of-Learning-Passes-to-Muslim-Civilization.htm