I see that in response to Lord Taylor’s recent post, Alex has commented:
“there is no point to the house of lords – they are unelected and just use up our taxes. their only power is to delay bills by one year”.
That completely misunderstands the House of Lords. The cost to the public purse of a member of the House in the 2006-07 session was less than one-sixth the cost of an MP. The House is extremely efficient and delivers significant outputs at relatively little cost.
The impact of the House is seen in different ways. The main one in respect of legislation is not delaying a Bill for a year – it rarely does that – but rather in achieving amendments to Bills. Each year, between 2,000 and 4,000 amendments to Government Bills are secured the House of Lords, all bar a few by agreement: that is, the Government accepts that they improve a measure. As a result, they are also acceptable to the House of Commons. In so far as it is possible to calculate the difference, it has been estimated that the House of Lords makes twice the difference to legislation as that made by the House of Commons.
The House fulfils a range of other functions. It scrutinises the actions and policy of government, as well as of the European Union. Each week, through sub-committees of the EU Committee, more than seventy members of the House are engaged in scrutiny of EU proposals. Other committees cover a range of important topics (including the constitution, economic affairs, communications, and science and technology). The experience and expertise of the House enables the task to be fulfilled to effect.
The House fulfils a significant agenda-setting role. Peers can raise issues through a variety of means (balloted debates, questions for short debate, Question Time). The issues may be important to particular sections of society but not have been raised before. They may be on matters that enjoy little popularity, but deserve discussion. Peers may return to the issues and, in time, the case for legislative change may be recognised by the House and by Government.
The list is illustrative rather than exhaustive. The composition of the House enables it look at issues from a different perspective to that of MPs. As such, it does not duplicate the elected chamber but rather complements its activities. In the past, the House has tended to hide its light under a bushel. Now, there is a recognition that it should go out and explain what it is doing. This blog is part of that activity. So is the ‘Peers in Schools’ initiative. We are keen to engage and explain. I think we have something notably worthwhile to convey.
It’s just a hunch, but something tells me this post has been written for a long-time, just waiting for someone to make that comment about the Lords being useless. Not that I’m complaining, I’ve been waiting for that comment — and looking forward to your response — as well.
Not sure if this works, but my lay view of the two houses is that the Commons is a Democracy and the Lords a Meritocracy. It’s a good combination.
Here are a couple of questions: how long does the Lords spend in scrutinising legislation (just a rough average, assuming all pieces of legislation were the same size)? What’s the fastest bit of legislation to go through the Lords? My apologies if we’ve already discussed these questions.
Hear, hear; more peers should come out and promote the work of the House. It disgusts me that, while the parties clearly aren’t in favour of reform of the Lords, they haven’t the guts to promote a clearly superior appointed House.
Democracy should be a benchmark, a rule to favour, a promoted reference note to our constitution; if you use it as the single fundamental and guiding principle you destroy all reasonable discourse in the blind pursuit of an impossible ideal.
Liam: On your first point, the answer is yes and no. The points I make are ones I have variously developed elsewhere, often at greater length. On your substantive queries, it is difficult to identify an ‘average’ Bill. Some Bills are of great length and complexity – in some cases, so long that they are published in two volumes. Others (albeit very few in practice) may be a single page in length. Big bills may take five or six days in committee, two or three days on report stage, and a day or half-day on third reading. There are, incidentally, stipulated gaps between each stage (two weekends between first and second reading, fourteen days between second reading and committee stage, fourteen days between committee and report stage, and at least three days between report and third reading) so normally a Bill is before the House for at least six or seven weeks and, given the pressure of business, often for much longer. However, in an emergency, if the House agrees, the gaps between stages can be dispensed with in order to pass a bill: in such circumstances, a Bill could be passed in a day. That does, though, require all-party agreement. The Government lacks an overall majority, so is dependent on the agreement of the House.
In terms of aggregate data, the House will usually sit for about 150 days a year (though it can vary significantly because of long and short sessions either side of an election) and fifty to sixty per cent of the time in the chamber is given over to legislation. The length of each sitting is about six-and-a-half hours. The use of Grand Committees – taking committee stage of some Bills off the floor of the House – has considerably extended the time available to examine legislation.
Liam and Adrian Kidney: On your views of the merits of the House, I agree entirely.
Lord Norton – this post is amazingly good timing, as I’ve been looking to ask a question for a little while now:
What exactly can the House of Lords do to scrutinise how the government is handling the current financial difficulties?
Given that problems arise that need to be dealt with quickly how do both houses avoid becoming a rubber stamp, whilst not wasting precious time? (I guess this leads off your earlier response to Liam.)
Also – what is currenly happening in the house on this issue? Where/how/what is being discussed? A couple of recent posts have been about the financial crisis – it would be nice to hear a varierty of views.
Lastly – there are other more radical alternatives to the house of Lords – if members of the Lords are in the house because the possess specific expertise, why not just call “experts juries” for relevent issues? We could do away with the Lords then. (Maybe I’m being a just a little provocative?)
I like the Lords (or rather, any Lord-ish upper-house), the main reason being that its not democratic – people are given positions based on expertise. Can’t we get rid of the lower-house and just keep the Lords? 🙂 I want my rulers to be smart, not popular; at least with the Lords we have a chance of sneaking in some wisdom to legislation.
***
tom
We could have Expert Juries, but who would convene them?, also we could not know how they may be influenced.
With the Lords, we have clearly defined political allegiance (and, therefore, to some extent, morals), from people who are extablished in their areas of expertise (who would likley be called into the Jury anyway!) and are also likely to have transferable knowledge applicable to other areas of law.
I’m sure the Lords themselves can think-up better reasons.
Thank you for the reply Lord Norton. I realise that the question requires a very generalised answer, you replied with a good amount of detail.
I also noticed, in that original quote:
Seriously, how much do the Lords cost; would it even be more than £60 million per-year? Because for ~£1 per-taxpayer, per-year the Lords are well worth it, come on Alex: it’s only a pound! 🙂
Liam: The total cost of the House per annum, which includes not just the expenses of peers but all the cost of the support staff and upkeep of the building, was (in 2006-07) £108m. which equates to £3.50 per taxpayer. The cost of the Commons was £11.40 per taxpayer. Expressed in terms of the cost per member, the cost to the public purse of a peer (2006-07) was £108,000 and the cost of an MP was £682,000.
Another way of looking at it is to consider what the cost would be if the present House was replaced by another second chamber. This is something I touched upon in an earlier post in discussing the Government White Paper on Lords reform: the cost of the House as envisaged in the White Paper would be more than that of the present House. It would cost more and, in my view, deliver less.
Tom: Troika21 has responded to your point on expert juries. On the financial crisis, now that the House is back we are able to pursue the situation through statements and questions. The statements made by the Chancellor in the Commons have been made also in the Lords, enabling peers to question and comment on the government’s position. For Question Time, there is a question down by Lord Barnett (a former Labour Chief Secretary to the Treasury) asking when the Chancellor last had an official meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England and what was discussed, which will provide an opportunity for further probing and comment. Lord Hoyle has a question down about short selling shares. Both will be taken next week. We then have a question from Lord Sheldon (a former Labour minister and Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee) on the estimate for the balance of payments in the current year. Lord Cotter has a question down about assistance to small businesses in the current financial situation. There are thus opportunities to pursue different aspects of the crisis on the initiative of peers as well as question government whenever a ministerial statement is made.
Dear Troika21,
How I agree with you about getting rid of the Lower House! Its members are a menace.
As for the Upper House, I would abolish life peerages and with some exceptions (such as The Bishops) only allow hereditary peers to sit. Current life peers could sit for the rest of their term. Future appointees would be given hereditary peerages. If they did not want to accept them they would not be able to enter the Upper House.
Not wishing to be too provocative but this country was at its greatest before the age of universal suffrage and when the House of Lords was indeed the house of aristocratic Lords.
Howridiculous.
My lord speaker, gentlemen,
It seems to me that, although the
Lords is useful for ministers without pay, who want to be involved
in government deliberations, that in fact there are probably quite a few people who would like to be members of the other place without being paid ministerial fees either.
Noble Viscount Stansgate’s father, has always made plain his preference for a unicameral parliament,( which I oppose), but there may be a unitary attitude to fee/wage payment to ministers in both places.
Baroness Thatcher’s remittance of some of her wages during her time as PM is surely a case in point?
Howridiculous,
I think a problem has infected democracies all over the world – because of mass-media, they have become extremely influenced by populism. As we are finding out with America, it easier to get people to vote for you by firing up a narrow base of support than by appealing to reason and debate.
I believe that there are two methods to solve this problem –
1) Education, if we could educate people enought so that they are in a position to understand for themselves and pick apart shoddy logic, or to simply take a step back from their own views then much would be accomplished. Just getting people to listen to the other side would be helpful. All I’m looking for here is to inculcate some political scepticism.
2) Reform our democratic instutitions to take into account how massive groups of people operate. I picture it as political parties being voted into power still based on populism, but that the governing Party only having the power to appoint new Lords, who would sit for life. In this way the Lords would take on something of the US Supreme Court. The purpose of the lower house would be *exclusively* to propose legislation, and to pass it – thus transfering all negotiation to the upper house.
That needs fleshing-out, but this is only a blog comment. 🙂
I have much more preferance for #1 though, I believe that an education is the most important thing that can be aquired in this world, and should be encouraged in the culture.
***
The Bishops must go! These people get a say on how I live my life, not in spite of hearing voices, but *because* they do is incredible!
I don’t think that hereditary peers are very useful – I’d like to see the Lords stocked-to-the-gills with scientists, economists and philosophers!
Dear Troika21,
We’ll have to agree to disagree about The Bishops! I think they should be retained. In fact, I would extend the offer of membership of the House of Lords to some other religious leaders by virtue of their position. For example, I think the Chief Rabbi should be offered a peerage; and I think the late Cardinal Basil Hume and Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor would have made and would make excellent members of the Upper House.
We’ll also have to agree to disagree about the hereditary peers. Some of them may, of course, be scientists, engineers and philosophers.
And I’m not sure education is the answer. The main issue, which has been mentioned before on this blog, is that most of the people for most of the time do not care about politics and are not interested in Government. That is not necessarily a bad thing.
Howridiculous,
I’ll do a Christopher Hitchens and take them in reverse.
I quite agree on your point that fewer people voting is not necessarily a bad thing, I feel that Plato’s complaint about democracy has now become part of our poliical landscape – it has become a method of legitimating mob-rule.
But education, I’ll defend to the end. I firmly believe that an education is the most important thing that anyone can have, and that they should have it. It is the great equaliser.
This comes from being a Sceptic; seeing claims of homeopaths, vitamin-hawkers and other more-than-dubious claims of para-normal ‘activity’ has made me quite adamant on this.
My main problem with hereditary peers is that you basically have no idea what you’re getting – its sort of, rule-by-raffle, I suppose.
And the Bishops … No no no no no, absolutely not! Unquestionably, they should go! I have to ask: What on earth do you think they’re good for!?
In technical questions I will defer to the judgement of experts, but on how I wish to live my life, not at all. Bishops can tell their congregations how to live, but I don’t accept their dogma, so its not acceptable for them to use this to make the rest of us live according to their rules.
Just to clear up something that may not be obvious, I’m not apposed to religious people taking office, just apposed to them getting a position in government because they are religious.
I note that “The House fulfils a range of other functions. It scrutinises the actions and policy of government, as well as of the European Union. Each week, through sub-committees of the EU Committee, more than seventy members of the House are engaged in scrutiny of EU proposals”.
Exactly WHY does it scutinise EU proposals and/or legislation? It cannot alter any of it unless it changes a “might” for a “may”etc. It perhaps is useful in order to explain to others what next we have to obey or do.
For a government that is supposed to be altering the House of Lords or suggesting half of it should be “elected” why on earth are more and more people being made Lords and Ladies in it at this present time?
From some of the recent debates and the voting on the last Treaty of the European Union in particular (‘last’in every sense) respect for those that sit on those red benches has gone down, in my estimation at least. I regret that very much, more for myself and the high standing I once had for all at one time.
Anne Palmer: The Lords EU Committee has the capacity, through examining EU proposals, to have an impact on ministers before discussion in the Council of Ministers as well as influence debate within EU institutions. Though no national parliament has a formal role in the EU law-making process (though would be given one under the Lisbon Treaty), the combination of the Scrutiny Reserve and the quality of the reasoned and evidence-based reports produced by the Committee (often with no parallel in the EU) has enabled it to be a notable influence on departments and on thinking within the EU. There is extensive interrogration of ministers, primarily through extended correspondence, and a willingness to employ the Scrutiny Reserve until such time as ministers have either agreed to change or adapt their position or provide a more detailed and persuasive justification for what they propose.
There is no evidence of decline in the estimation in which the House of Lords is held. As the survey data published by Meg Russell at the Constitution Unit (University College, London) has shown, and as previously discussed on this Blog, the percentage of the population believing that the House of Lords is doing a good job is higher than the percentage which believes the House of Commons is doing a good job.
I would have agreed with you lord Norton, until the votes of the last Treaty in the House of Lords.
On which matter, well done the ladies and gentleman of the House of Lords today. The more I learn about the law, the more I am grateful for your defence of our constitutional freedoms.
A thank you indeed to all that voted against the 42 days detention and for remembering we do indeed have our own somewhat battered Constitution.
Dear Troika21,
I must defend the Bishops’ membership of the House of Lords!
You say you are keen on a House of experts but the logic of your argument is that every type of expertise can be accommodated except the religious one. That cannot be right.
Bishops don’t, and shouldn’t, hold government office. We may disagree with their views (just as we may disagree with the views of scientists, academics etc). That is no reason for their voices not be heard in the Upper House.
There have been some really excellent debates in their Lordships’ House which have been lead, or contributed to, by the Lords Spiritual and what I have previously called the Lords spiritual for example some of the Methodist preachers who are members of the House. Only last week, The Bishop of Chelmsford lead this debate:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200708/ldhansrd/text/81009-0006.htm#08100958000007
I do wish though that membership of the Upper House by virtue of office was not solely given to members of the Church of England. As I said, I think Chief Rabbis should be offered a peerage and lament that serving Archbishops of Westminster aren’t able be members of the Lords.
On hereditary peers, it is perfectly true that you don’t know what you’re getting. But, then again, the same could be said about life peers. With them all you know is what they have done prior to membership of the House – that is no guarantee of what they will do in the future.
On education, I was not disputing its importance. Indeed, nothing could be more important. The point I was making was that however educated people may be most of them are not interested in the day to day operation of politics and government, unlike readers of this blog! Educated people can and do choose not to engage with the political process. That is due to their choosing not to engage rather than to any inadequacy in their eduction.
Right, I’ll get off my soap box now!
Howridiculous.
Howridiculous: The Church of England is the “established” Church and as such Bishops may contribute to the debates. However, as such it is a very broad Church and has ’embraced’ many religions throughout the Country and in Parliament. According to the Act of Settlement, a main part of our Constitution, only British people were allowed to hold certain position at one time.
The Hereditary Peers were a great asset to the House of Lords, and according to the Treaty and Act of Union there should be at least 16 (Hereditary) Scots Peers to represent Scotland. I say ‘Hereditary’ because there were only Hereditary Peers at that time. If there is no difference between Life Peers and Hereditary, why change them?
Hereditary’s have been replaced with ‘life’ Peers by the Government of the day and should a Conservative Government be next to sit on those green benches (I nearly wrote ‘in power’ which of course they are not in power any more are they?) no doubt we shall see another switch?
Having mentioned Acts from our Constitution, it should be born in mind that no member of this Parliament may alter any EU Treaty, EU Directive or EU law to suit any British person here in the UK in the way our Government has ignored or changed Treaties of long standing here in the UK.
If Convenor/Mod will allow me to comment on the delegated legislation function of the HofL, which, from my previous incarnation as a committee corridor point of viewer… is its main legislative purpose, there has been a good deal of criticism that much of the delgeatd legislation goes through on the nod, that the other place does not pay any attention to it at all, and it becomes Law with scarcely anybody knowing that is what it is.
That may be the cause firstly of alienation from Westminster procedures and secondly from
any involvement at the European ballot box.
Perhaps more delegated legislation should be broght in to the Chamber, although I may be very easily corrected on these matters , if it is already.
For delegated legislation to go round, and round and round, between various committees and chambers might be even worse!
It does seem that effective ‘international’ ie European Parliament lobbying combined with
HofL lobbying may be far more effective than
in the other place itself, and that initiating Bills(?) in Europe, knowing that
it will be not so much as looked at by the other place, may allow a much easier passage for new Law, especially with commercial implications.
International Law for international companies to impose their will on National chambers.