There are a number of events on the horizon which together will re-ignite the debate about the future of the House of Lords. The Bill on Alternative Voting Systems and Constitutional Reform. Our new expenses. The expected influx of new Peers and the forthcoming report on Peers’ retirement.
Only later will we have the proposals for an elected second chamber and so in many ways we are dealing with an interim House of Lords. A House awaiting reform.
However, this does not help to answer the basic question: what is the House of Lords for. Those that think that the House of Lords is there to scrutinise legislation and hold the government to account will argue that this is best done by people who are appointed. People who are appointed because they have the appropriate skills and experience. Those who argue that the House of Lords is there to influence public opinion, protect civil liberties and curtail an oppressive government will argue that this is best done through an elected House because Peers will then be representing the electors’ will.
During the next few months the discussion and debate will be about these peripheral matters which are interesting, absorbing and personal. But, unless we make a special effort, the basic question asking what we are there for will be ignored. The danger is that unless we answer the basic question first, we are likely to get the answers to the other questions wrong. So what are we there for?
People who are appointed because they have the appropriate skills and experience.
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And yet we have lots of posts about how incompetent ministers are in the Lords. Not enough skills or experience either.
Then there is the claim, we have lots of Lords with a wide range of life experiences.
However, no hairdressers, no car mechanics, … No representation of life experiences from the population in the Lords. The real criteria are friends of the PM and failures from the commons.
“an elected House because Peers will then be representing the electors’ will.”
Somehow I imagine many people observing the coalitions parties’ throwing away manifesto commitments as though they were desperately baling out a sinking ship might bridle at the notion this ‘represented the electors will’.
As the present Lords elected via STV or similar would have a colossal government majority I’m not clear how this would be likely to hold the executive to account especially as it would most likely be based on some form of list making elected ‘peers’ more beholden to their parties than at present.
All assuming we had a split ticket parliament how precisely do you imagine the Lords might ‘curtail an oppressive government’. The Lords has no practical say on any fiscal matters and a fixed five year parliament makes the Lords one year veto practically meaningless.
Sorry having a few tech problems with comments. This response is from Lord Haskel:
“You are right. An elected House of Lords would have to be given similar rights to an elected House of Commons and a say in financial and fiscal matters”
So what are we there for?
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To get back all the tax you’ve paid in the form of expenses.
Ask other peers. One has stated that this is her aim.
“Those who argue that the House of Lords is there to influence public opinion, protect civil liberties and curtail an oppressive government will argue that this is best done through an elected House because Peers will then be representing the electors’ will.”
Er, how so? I have not heard this argued, not least since protecting civil liberties and giving effect to the will of the people may be in conflict with one another.
Sorry having a few tech problems with comments. This response is from Lord Haskel:
“Presumably an elected House will have rights equal to those equal to the House of Commons and a new relationship will have to be worked out”.
That`s a brilliant question for a referendum, totally deceptive and wrong in it`s design. The basic question is good though ” What are you there for ?”
I would hope a mixture of the two alternatives you have given though the latter is becoming seemingly impossible as the Commons take more power away from the House.
I am pro-appointment, anti-elected for reasons stated before that I dare say will arise again another time.
By scrutunising legislation and holding Government to account one would hope you will also be doing part of your alternate in protecting civil liberties and curtailing any oppression. I feel the loss of power from the House to totally go against a Government has been somewhat lost, The Lords no longer seem to believe the electorate/the people are with them. This is possibly due to the constant negatives coming from the other place, if you`re told something often enough you start to believe it.
BUT people do know that their only hope in most instances is the Lords. Members of the House will listen to logic and evidence, in most instances, with an open mind. In the other place is purely a battle of “for” or “against” and the electorate get lost as peripheral damage in the heat of battle.
In the Commons MP`s are served evidence that is often tainted, statistics that are wrong but are asked to judge on those. They do ignore outside evidence but I find the Lords much more open to all evidence. Here for instance we can approach and in most cases get a fair hearing without too much Party Political deafness, there is some amount of that though.
The Lords has become like the last appeal Court of the people. So in answer to your question ” What are you there for ?” I would answer to listen, to judge fairly and in a balanced view, with unbiased opinion but with every ounce of expertise the House holds. To make sure that Legislation is fair and in the interests of the people and the Nation and to reject that which has been found wanting. Government only had the backing of the people at the time the “X” went in the box, they have an agenda and possibly are not open to debate. I hope you are.
Before legislation can judge the people, it is your job to judge the legislation, without Political bias.
Sorry having a few tech problems with comments. This response is from Lord Haskel:
“Thank you for your thoughtful response. You make a very good case for an unelected House of Lords. I would also add that an unelected House of Lords would do a very good job in post legislative scrutiny”.
Er, how so? I have not heard this argued, not least since protecting civil liberties and giving effect to the will of the people may be in conflict with one another.
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Compared to what? You’re imply that they are in conflict and that the current set up is free from any such issues.
Lets look at the evidence. The will of the people is that the crooks in government are prosecuted. Instead, you change the rules retrospectively to make the thievery legal.
It’s very easy. Put in place a proper bill of rights that is legally binding. Make it a criminal offence punishable by long terms of imprisonment to violate those rights. So if you get it wrong, you personally as a legistlator go to jail. A completely free thing to offer, since you wouldn’t violate such rights, you can offer that guarantee for free. If you object, we know why, you plan to violate those rights.
However you’ve regularly allowed legistation through that is illegal, because you aren’t doing your job.
e.g. “All fines forfeitures and imprisonment are illegal without conviction first”.
Now, take one example, parking. Fines were renamed ‘penalty charges’ in order to get around the requirement for a conviction first. Legal sophistry to subvert a fundamental UK right. Ditto with the current move today to remove the right to ask for a jury trial.
LN: While I don’t necessarily disagree with the thrust of your point there are issues with the chattering class notion that doing what the public want and protecting civil liberties are mutually exclusive.
Croft: ‘may be’, not will be.
LB: Ah! You mean the trades are not represented in the Lords? Quite so! You must understand that themselves use their heads instead of their hands, its what they are good at.
LH: You seem to have forgotten that the good work done by the house in amending bills is thrown away because the Commons takes the view that the house lacks legitamacy. Very few of those changes actually get through to statute.
Is it me or has the reply indentation stopped working on the blog?
115 million a year for nowt.
Hands in other people’s pockets. quite.
Senex you are correct, reply stopped working at least 3 days ago.
Senex: A great many of the changes agreed by the Lords make it to the statute book: about 1,000 to 4,000 amendments are secured each year to Government Bills. Most of these are agreed without a division, in other words they are acceptable to the Government. Even in the small number of cases where they are the result of the Government being defeated, 40% of these are accepted by the Government – somewhat counter-intuitively (as Meg Russell’s research has shown) these tend to be the more important amendments.
what is the House of Lords for.
Of course if the conservative party takes the approach that loads of Peers spilling out of
the house in all directions is good for the increase of Royal prerogative, then they will surely endeavour to do nothing at all, or as slowly as possible.
If every other family in the country can say “Oh! My uncle is a Lord!” and can be involved in high society accordingly, then everybody will be happy, in a superficial way.
There are some people with principles which work contrary to belief in status for the sake of status, although regrettably few.
LN: I would refer readers to the committee session you attended where your eminent colleague Professor Robert Hazell gave a wider view of this.
Ref: Lords’ Constitutional Reform Committee; Jul 21,2010
Q52 Lord Irvine of Lairg; Professor Hazell; Page 37
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/lords-committees/constitution/CRP/cCNST210710ev1.pdf
Sorry having a few tech problems with comments. This response is from Lord Haskel:
“I would also refer you to Professor Hazell’s paper dated June 2010 “The Conservative-Liberal Democrat Agenda for Constitutional and Political Reform”
I read this post after reading Lord Tyler’s above. This is a more appropriate place for a comment.
I agree with you wholeheartedly: What is the role of the House of Lords? We shouldn’t be responding to HL Paper 48 or discussing secondary roles without going back to that fundamental question, otherwise we’ll just be rearranging the deck chairs. What is its Prime purpose? Everything else that it does should be ignored utnil its prime purpose is decided.
Wikipedia puts it this way: The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the United Kingdom’s national legislature. [my emphasis] If that is the prime role, then what does it do in support of that “prime” role? I note that since this government came into power, from May 2009 to Oct 2010, the Official Journal of the European Union states that 1884 Regulations, 217 Directives and 1730 pieces of ‘Other Legislation” have been passed. Of course the House of Lords has not debated them because they cannot be stopped, because the EU has competence or power in almost all areas of legislation.
So if 3831 pices of legislation have been passed about which the House of Lords can do nothing, what does it do in support of its prime role. I stress prime role. I’m sure that it performs many other worthy functions but should they be done by such a body? If we now have so little legislative power that hasn’t been handed to the EU government, then do we really need a House of Lords? That question should be looked at very seriously.
Of course if we took back power over those competencies, eg agriculture, fisheries, competition, VAT, environment, and increasingly foreign policy and law, then the House would have a noble and worthy role, but until that time, someone should be asking that question and not concerning itself with secondary roles.
There is the other question.
Value for money.
We know the cost. 115 million a year.
For the changes they effect, the vast majority is the government just being expedient and correcting its own legistlation via the lords. A minister makes the change.
That leaves a few changes left. The cost per change is vast.
It’s not value for money and needs to go.
mail@alfredtheordinary.co.uk: You appear under a misapprehansion as to what the Lords can and does do. It can and does examine proposals for EU legislation, it can and does influence Government in the stance taken by the UK in the Council of Ministers, and it does now have a formal role (as I previously mentioned) in the EU law-making process, along with other national legislatures. The last of these may be limited but it nonetheless constitutes a step forward.
I’m sure that I have only a tiny grasp of what the Lords can and does do. However, I see little evidence that the Lords has debated 3831 pieces of EU legislation over those 18 months. Yes, it might have a formal role in the EU law-making process, but again, in practical terms I see almost no evidence that the Lords has had any impact in that law-making process. I think “limited” is a vast understatement.
I would love to see the Lords regain its sovereign powers but as there seems to be no appetite for that, until then, no changes should be made until a serious look is taken at its role as a legislative body considering the role of the ECJ and the EU Commission. Purpose first, changes second.
You appear under a misapprehansion as to what the Lords can and does do.
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I think Alfreds worked it out. You can do nowt and yet will cost us half a billion over the next 5 years
The problem is that the lords claim oversight but never do anything. As you say.
So why are we paying over half a billion for them?
m@a: The answer to your question “What is its Prime purpose?”
Indeed the very same question was asked by Thomas Erskine May and he put down his thoughts and answers in a first edition book in 1844. The later editions of this book are now regarded as ‘Parliaments Bible’ and define its constitutional role.
Much has changed since 1844 and in my view only the dignities of Lords’ remain. The house suffered a loss of dignity one hundred years ago but now there is a chance that it may soon be restored at least in part; one view then of a restored house is that it serves to protect the dignity of itself and that of the people from the power of the executive. Has your dignity been sullied recently by the power of the executive? What powers would you give the house to defend your dignity?
You suggest that the house is surrendering sovereignty to the EU at the expense of the national interest. What is supposed to happen is that the EU only legislates on the basis of a collective need and leaves other more parochial legislation to the member state. However, there is an overlap.
You would have to supply evidence that EU legislation is not serving the collective need before suggesting that it should be opposed in Parliament. The reason why there is so much EU legislation is that all the member states have needs more in common with each other than they have not.
Ref: A Treatise upon the Law, Privileges, and Proceeding and
Usage of Parliament; Thomas Erskine May, Esq. Barrister at Law
Assistant Librarian of the House of Commons; 1844. Book I Page 5
http://books.google.com/books?id=czA0AAAAIAAJ
Senex said on 07/11 ”You would have to supply evidence that EU legislation is not serving the collective need before suggesting that it should be opposed in Parliament. The reason why there is so much EU legislation is that all the member states have needs more in common with each other than they have not.”
That is starting at the wrong point. Who is deciding the “collective need”? (The Commission, with inputs from 27 EU States). How is the legislation imposed? (QMV) What if an EU State disagrees with the “collective need”? (QMV ensures that it’s once sovereign voice, is overridden in favours of the perceived “collective need”)
What about EU legislation that is damaging an EU State but is perceived as serving the “collective need”? If we were a sovereign State then we could discuss and either agree to implement it, or agree not to, as it is too damaging. That choice has now been taken from us in almost all important policy areas. Please remember that we voted in favour of a Common Market of sovereign States, not a Supreme government of Europe which is what we now have, that now decides on the “collective need” for us at the expense of our agriculture, fisheries, financial sector, etc etc, down even to small industries such as Twinings Tea.
Is protecting great creasted newts good for the “collective need”? In most EU States, it is sound legislation, but in the UK we have an abundance of breeding pairs. Just ask any builder whose costs have been pushed up by this “collective need” legislation; a cost that is passed on to the rest of us.
Twinings’ €12 million EU grant to build a factory in Poland means that it closes a plant in UK, and we pay our taxes for this sort of nonsense. By all means take a sound business decision, but a tax grant to destroy jobs in one country and transplant them to another EU State is, of course, in favour of the “collective need”. and so on and so on……..
Somem interesting exchanges and replies here!
The Lords has become like the last appeal Court of the people(CarlH)
It has become recently UN-like it, if Carl recalls the move to the Middlesex chambers of the Law lords.
Alfred’s comment about EU collective need is interesting, and is contradictory. The interests of wales are for example frequently not served by those of the rest of the EU, but if the EU is to be a modern nation above and beyond nation states and mere regions like Wales and Scotland, then directives must be accepted as NON- multi-cultural, but mono-cultural, with all that it entails.
Little as I like the political stance of noble lord Norton, I may say that he does represent(!) useful values in the law making process.
m@a: I once had a Great Crested Newt as a pet; I called him ‘Tiny’. Someone once asked me why I called him ‘Tiny’; it was such an obvious name. I replied because he was my newt.