For more than a century, governments in the United Kingdom have attempted to find a way to undertake a comprehensive reform of the House of Lords, which is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This process was started by the Parliament Act 1911 introduced by the then Liberal Government which stated:
| “ | ...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation[1] | ” |
When the Labour Party came to power in the 1997 general election, it had in its manifesto the promise to reform the House of Lords:
| “ | The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute...[2] | ” |
On 7 November 2001 the government undertook a public consultation.[3] This helped to create a public debate on the issue of Lords reform, with 1,101 consultation responses[4] and numerous debates in Parliament and the media. However, no consensus on the future of the upper chamber emerged.
All three of the main parties promised to take action on Lords reform in the 2010 general election, and following it the Coalition Agreement included a promise "to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation".[5]
Detailed proposals were published on 17 May 2011.[6]
Contents |
Parliament Act 1911 - removed the ability of the House of Lords to veto money bills, with any other bills, the House of Commons was given powers to overrule the Lords' veto after 3 sessions.
Parliament Act 1949 - amended the 1911 act reducing the time the Lords could delay a bill from 3 sessions to 2.
Salisbury Convention (1945–1951) - An unwritten constitutional convention that as the Commons is the elected chamber, it therefore has a mandate to pass anything in manifesto without Lords Veto. This was necessary as the Conservative Party had an absolute majority in the House of Lords, and it was seen as inappropriate for them to use this to block the Labour government's policies following their landslide victory in 1945.
Life Peerages Act 1958 - This enabled the appointment of a new class of peers, who could sit and vote in the House of Lords, but the honour and rights would not be hereditary. These were merit-bases, letting in ‘the great and the good’ these were from various backgrounds of expertise and experience and ending in the exclusively hereditary (and male dominated) composition. Since this time, almost all peerages have been life peerages.
Peerage Act 1963 - Allowed hereditary peers to disclaim their peerage, allowing them to vote and stand for elections to the House of Commons. It also permitted hereditary peers in the Peerage of Scotland and female hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords.
Originally, the two Houses of Parliament had equal legislative powers. The agreement of both was necessary before a bill could be submitted to the Monarch for royal assent, which if granted made the bill an Act of Parliament. After the English Restoration, a constitutional convention arose that the House of Lords would defer to the House of Commons on measures to raise and spend money. The Parliament Act 1911 divided Bills into three classes.
Together with the Parliament Act 1949, these two acts enable the Commons (in exceptional circumstance) to pass legislation without approval from the Lords but subject to certain time delays. In effect, they give the House of Lords the power to delay legislation but not to prevent it. Since 1911 there have been various attempts to reform the Lords, but none tackled the powers of the House except the Parliament Act 1949 which reduced the suspensory veto to two sessions and one year. By the time of the 1997 general election there was still no consensus on comprehensive reform of the upper chamber of Parliaments.
In 1999, the Government completed a deal with the Lords to remove most of the hereditary Peers and passed the House of Lords Act 1999 leaving amongst the majority of appointed Peers a rump of 92 Hereditary Peers until the second phase of reform was complete. These 92 were elected from within those who had had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status. This arrangement was intended to be purely temporary until the second stage of reform was completed.[7] This led to some claims (perhaps not all serious) that the elected Hereditary Lords were the only democratic members of the House.
In 1999 a Royal Commission was appointed, under Baron Wakeham, to examine proposals for Lords Reform and make recommendations. It published its report (See Wakeham Report[8]) in 2000 with 132 recommendations of which the main were:
In the debate in the House of Lords (7 March 2000), Baroness Jay expressed the Government's broad acceptance of the Commission's report:
| “ | The Government accept the principles underlying the main elements of the Royal Commission's proposals on the future role and structure of this House, and will act on them. That is, we agree that the Second Chamber should clearly be subordinate, largely nominated but with a minority elected element and with a particular responsibility to represent the regions. We agree there should be a statutory appointments commission ...[9] | ” |
On 4 May 2000 the Prime Minister announced the membership of a non-statutory Appointments Commission;[10] In the debate in the Commons on 19 June 2000 the Government announced the establishment of a Joint Committee of both houses to consider the Royal Commission's work.[11] But in a written reply on 6 March 2001 the Government stated there was little prospect of a Joint Committee being established in the present Parliament due to a failure of cross-party discussions.[12] On 26 April 2001 the Queen confirmed her intention to create 15 new non party-political members of the House of Lords termed "People's Peers". In the May 2001 general election, all three main parties included statements on House of Lords reform in their manifestos.
On 7 November 2001, the government launched a white paper and consultation stating:
| “ | A credible and effective second chamber is vital to the health of Britain's democracy... The Government is determined to proceed with this wider reform of the House of Lords. The Royal Commission offered an excellent way forward and the Government has a clear electoral mandate to undertake it. Our mission is to equip the British people with a Parliament and a constitution fit for the 21st century. A reformed second chamber has an indispensable role to play, and this White Paper prepares the way for its introduction.[3] | ” |
In the white paper, although the government said it "strongly endorsed" the Royal Commission's views, it listed its own proposals:[3]
The white paper invited comments from interested parties stating the government intended to introduce legislation "incorporating decisions on the issues raised in the consultation"[3] and listed the following as the main points of consultation:
The result was that an unprecedented 1101 submissions were made to the consultation and both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties published their own proposals during the consultation in January 2002. In May 2002, the Government published a statistical analysis. The Government proposed to establish a Joint Committee on House of Lords Reform to try to take matters forward and achieve a consensus[13][14]
On 11 December 2002 the Joint Committee published its first report which set out "an inclusive range of seven options for the composition of a reformed House of Lords".[15] In January 2003, the House of Lords and Commons debated the report. The debate in the Lords was dominated by contributors arguing for a fully appointed House so much so that Lord Irvine stated:
| “ | Plainly, the dominant view of this House expressed over the past two days is in favour of an all-appointed House[16] | ” |
And, on 29 January 2003 Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, added his own support to a fully appointed House by arguing against the creation of a hybrid House.[17] On 4 February 2003, the Commons and House of Lords voted on the seven options proposed by the joint committee and the Commons also voted on an amendment to abolish the upper House completely:
| Option | Lords | Commons | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elected | Appointed | For | Against | For | Against |
| 0% | 100% | 335 | 110 | 245 | 323 |
| 20% | 80% | 39 | 375 | - | - |
| 40% | 60% | 60 | 358 | - | - |
| 50% | 50% | 84 | 322 | - | - |
| 60% | 40% | 91 | 317 | 253 | 316 |
| 80% | 20% | 93 | 338 | 281 | 284 |
| 100% | 0% | 106 | 329 | 272 | 289 |
| Abolition | - | - | 172 | 390 | |
After this series of votes where the Commons failed to back a single option and the Lords only a fully appointed House, Robin Cook the leader of the Commons said:
| “ | We should go home and sleep on this interesting position. That is the most sensible thing that anyone can say in the circumstances. As the right honourable Gentleman knows, the next stage in the process is for the Joint Committee to consider the votes in both Houses. Heaven help the members of the Committee, because they will need it.[18] | ” |
With widely differing views in the Joint Committee, its report on 9 May 2003 effectively passed the initiative back to the Government. But nine members of the Joint Committee issued a statement coinciding with the publication which stated:
| “ | Since the House of Commons rejected the option of a fully appointed Second Chamber by a large majority on 4th February it would be absurd and unacceptable to introduce legislation which would have that effect. Simply evicting the hereditary peers, and placing the appointments process on a statutory basis, would result in that soundly rejected option. Those who argue that the Commons must remain predominant - including Ministers - should surely respect the outcome of that vote by MPs.[19] | ” |
Creation of Department for Constitutional Affairs In June 2003, Tony Blair announced the creation of a new department to oversee constitutional change with Lord Falconer as its first Secretary of State. The department was tasked with:
When in 2003 Lord Falconer signalled the governments preference for an all appointed House of Lords, three members of the Liberal Democrats issued a statement:
| “ | We, together with other members of the committee, issued a statement at the same time stating our belief that the committee could not continue to act in the absence of an indication of the government's preferred route to achieve its manifesto commitment to a more representative and democratic House of Lords. | ” |
Ministers responded saying
| “ | We cannot accept the removal of the remaining hereditary peers on its own, but only as part of much wider measures of reform to create a democratic and accountable second chamber.... We therefore see no role which the joint committee can usefully play in achieving the reformed House of Lords which we seek.[20] | ” |
In September 2003, the Department for Constitutional Affairs issued Constitutional Reform: Next Steps for the House of Lords, which gave as its main proposals:
The paper also started a second consultation, on the Appointments Commission for the House of Lords requesting submissions on how the Appointments Commission itself would be appointed, even though no other alternatives to an appointed Commission had been considered. Reaction to the paper was hostile: for example, Lord Goodhart, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Constitutional Affairs, said "the overwhelming reaction I have is a feeling of contempt and betrayal."[21] On 18 March 2004 (before the statistical analysis had been published), the BBC reported[22] that the government would not proceed with legislation to enact the proposals in the consultation. Although this suggested a lack of support for their proposals from the consultation, when the statistical analysis was published on 22 April 2004 the report stated that on the main issue (2a):
| “ | 87 percent of respondents dealing with issue 2 (a) were in favour of a Commission composed of representatives of the three main political parties and the cross-benchers and a number of independently appointed members.[23] | ” |
With such an apparently high level of support, it is unclear why the government chose not to proceed. The only insight available is unofficial reports putting the actual level of support at closer to third.
Moreover, as the government published most of the responses to both consultations, it is possible to see that many of these responses were highly critical of both the Government's proposal and the consultation process; some even went on to complain that the UK government breached its own code of conduct for consultations by failing to mention many of the new ideas arising from both consultations.
In the 2005 general election, all three parties included statements on reform of the House of Lords in their manifestos with the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats promising "substantially"/"predominantly" elected Chambers. In December 2005, the Constitution Unit, part of the University College of London's School of Public Policy, released research findings showing "surprising levels of support from MPs and the public for the Lords to vote down government proposals":
| “ | Despite the unelected basis of the Lords these results make clear that it enjoys support from MPs and the general public to block policies that are perceived as unpopular. Far from clashing with the Commons it may even inflict government defeats with the silent approval of Labour MPs. Whilst government may wish to tame the powers of the Lords, these results suggest that voters are really quite happy with things as they are."[24] | ” |
In March 2006, the House of Lords reform was again under discussion. This new interest resulted from the Cash for Peerages affair together with recent attempts by the Lords to block, water down (or add safeguards to, according to viewpoint), recent controversial legislation such as the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, Hunting Act 2004, Terrorism Act 2006, the Identity Cards Act 2006, and the Racial and Religious Hatred Act 2006. Following the failure of the previous public consultations, to endorse the Government's proposals for reform, in April 2006, Baroness Amos announced the government would now "consult privately" with the other main political parties on the membership of the House.[25]
In the UK Cabinet reshuffle, May 2006 on 5 May 2006, governmental responsibility for this topic was transferred from Lord Falconer the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs and Lord Chancellor to the Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw.
Jack Straw now faced an enormous challenge. Although seen as very modest reforms, the removal of most Hereditary Peers and rebalancing of the political make up of the House (Labour Peers now formed the largest political party) were making the House increasingly confident of its own legitimacy. Paradoxically, far from making the Lords more submissive, more and more the House of Lords was willing to be assertive in its actions and confront the government.[26]
On 22 January 2007 the Power Inquiry[27] launched a campaign for greater citizen involvement and provided statistics showing that 68% of the public felt a jury of the general public should decide "the future of the House of Lords," 17% thought elected politicians should decide and 9% appointed Civil servants.
On 8 February 2007, the Government published a new white paper[28] following discussions of a cross-party working group convened by Jack Straw, Leader of the House of Commons. The consensus position adopted by the paper called for a House composed of elected members and members appointed by a new Statutory Appointments Commission. The new Commission would select non-party-political appointees; party-political appointees would be nominated by party leaders in the House of Commons and vetted by the Commission.
Any elected element would be elected under a regional list system. All elections and appointments would take place on a five-year cycle, with one third of the House admitted at each intake to a fixed fifteen-year term; this term would be non-renewable, to ensure members' independence. A further measure would prohibit former members of the reformed House from seeking election to the House of Commons before a minimum amount of time had elapsed after the expiry of their term in the reformed House - the Government suggested five years. The aim of this measure was to prevent aspiring politicians from using the reformed House as a base to launch a Parliamentary career. The Government proposed that elections and appointments should be held on the same day as elections for Britain's Members of the European Parliament - which also take place on a fixed five-year cycle.
Whilst the white paper made recommendations for a half-elected, half-appointed House, it proposed a free vote of MPs among seven options as to composition (see below). The white paper also recommended that at least 20% of members be non-party-political appointees: for example, under the white paper's proposal of a 50-50 split between elected and appointed members, the remaining 30% appointed members would be party political; under the 80%-20% elected/appointed option, there would be no party-political appointees. The 20% non-party-political element would include a reduced number of Church of England bishops, whose appointment would not go through the Statutory Appointments Commission. The total size of the House was proposed to be 540 members - with 180 introduced at each intake.
The paper provided for a gradual transition, with no life peers forced to retire before death, but with the possibility of a redundancy package should they choose to do so. The remaining hereditary peers would be removed, but the white paper left open whether they would be removed at one stroke or allowed a gradual removal by 'natural wastage'. The link between the peerage and membership of the House would be broken: peerages could still potentially be awarded as an honour, but would neither entail nor follow automatically from a seat in the House. The question of a possible new name for the reformed House was left open.
The white paper also proposed avoiding the risk of all options being rejected, as had occurred in the 2003 debate, by using the alternative vote system (also known as instant-runoff voting).[29] Using the alternative vote for legislative proposals would have been a new precedent for the UK Parliament. Resistance by Members on all sides of the House of Commons caused Leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw to drop this proposal on 19 February. The free vote was therefore held under traditional Parliamentary procedures.
In March 2007 the Houses of Commons and Lords debated the proposals in the 2007 white paper and voted on a similar series of motions to those voted on in 2003. Unexpectedly, the House of Commons voted by a large majority for an all-elected Upper House.[30] One week later, the House of Lords retorted by voting for an all-appointed House by a larger majority.[31]
After the Commons vote, it was speculated by political commentators that some MPs supporting a fully appointed House had voted tactically for a fully elected House as the option likely to be least acceptable to the House of Lords.[32] This called into question the significance of the larger majority achieved for 100% elected than that achieved for 80% elected. However, examination of the names of MPs voting at each division in the Commons shows that, of the 305 who voted for the 80% elected option, 211 went on to vote for the 100% elected option. Given that this vote took place after the vote on 80% – whose result was already known when the vote on 100% took place – this shows a clear preference in the Commons for a fully elected Upper House over the only other option that passed, since any MP who favoured 80% over 100% would have voted against the latter motion, having already secured their preferred outcome (76 MPs – including Jack Straw, his shadow Theresa May and Opposition Leader David Cameron – did exactly that). Had all the votes been held in the contrary order, those 211 would have voted against the 80% motion, which would consequently have fallen.
| Option | Lords | Commons | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Elected | Appointed | For | Against | For | Against |
| 0% | 100% | 361 | 121 | 196 | 375 |
| 20% | 80% | - | - | - | - |
| 40% | 60% | - | - | - | - |
| 50% | 50% | 46 | 409 | 155 | 418 |
| 60% | 40% | 45 | 392 | 178 | 392 |
| 80% | 20% | 114 | 336 | 305 | 267 |
| 100% | 0% | 112 | 326 | 337 | 224 |
| Retain Bicameral | - | - | 416 | 163 | |
| Remove Hereditaries | - | - | 391 | 111 | |
There was strong opinion about the votes. Lord McNally, the Liberal Democrat leader in the Lords said the Lords' decision
| “ | flies in the face of public opinion and of the commitment made by all three major parties at the last general election. ... A veto on constitutional reform by the House of Lords is not acceptable. It is now up to the House of Commons to assert its primacy. The Liberal Democrats' 100-year-old commitment to an elected House of Lords remains intact.[33] | ” |
Prior to the debate Lord Lipsey, former Economics Editor of the Sunday Times, estimated the cost of the plans in the white paper at £1.092 billion over a 15 year term.[34] The government dismissed this as "back-of-an-envelope calculations"[35] and Jack Straw told the House of Commons that
| “ | May I say that Lord Lipsey's estimate is absolute utter balderdash and nonsense? It cannot be the case that a partly elected other place would cost £1 billion when the total cost of this place, according to the most extravagant analysis, is £300 million.[36] | ” |
("Other place" is Commons jargon for the House of Lords.) In response Lord Lipsey accused Jack Straw of misleading the House of Commons:
| “ | He said that the figure was £300 million; in fact, for the latest year it is £468.8 million. For that, see the Written Answer from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, ... that is only the minor error. The major error is that he compared my costing for a full 15-year period with the annual cost of the House of Commons.[37] | ” |
On 15 March Lord Steel published a proposed bill approved by a large meeting of peers and MPs of all parties who had been working on these proposals for some time with proposals for four reforms:[38]
On 19 July 2007 Jack Straw in his new position as Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary in the cabinet of Gordon Brown announced that
| “ | The Government is determined to proceed with this programme of reform with a view to its completion.[39] | ” |
Jack Straw also stated that the powers of the chamber, the method of election, financial packages and the number of members will (yet again) be discussed by a cross-party working group. The opposition's response was to suggest that "the real message in your statement today [is] that Lords reform is on ice until after the next election".[40]
On 14 May 2008 Gordon Brown announced that the government intends to publish a new white paper on lords reform.[41]
The Conservative – Liberal Democrat Coalition agreement agreed following the 2010 general election clearly outlines a provision for a wholly or mainly elected second chamber, elected by a proportional representation system. These proposals sparked a debate on the 29th June 2010.[42] As an interim measure, appointment of new peers will reflect shares of the vote secured by the political parties in the last general election.[43]
Detailed proposals for Lords reform were published on 17 May 2011.[6] These include a 300-member hybrid house, of which 80% are elected. A further 20% would be appointed, and reserve space would be included for some Church of England bishops. Under the proposals, members would also serve single non-renewable terms of 15 years. Former MPs would be allowed to stand for election to the Upper House, but members of the Upper House would not be immediately allowed to become MPs.
"Central to the future House of Lords is its composition. For the Lords to act with legitimacy as an effective and balanced second chamber, it must have the right form to deliver the range of roles and functions it needs".[44] With 1101 submissions to the first consultation, several hundred to the second and many articles in the newspapers and various discussions, there were many different views on reform of the House of Lords. It is only possible to give a broad outline of the many different proposals and even then only those where the proposals were mentioned by a number of respondents.
Proposals are listed alphabetically
Many legislatures, such as the parliaments of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Israel and New Zealand (and within the UK, the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly, and the Northern Ireland Assembly) are unicameral and thus do not have an upper house. Instead, scrutiny is carried out by parliamentary committees. A substantial minority of MPs voted for the outright abolition of the upper house in 2003, and it was Labour party policy until the late 1980s.
There was a considerable number of proposals in the consultation for an Upper House chosen by allotment (random selection). Proposals varied from a House chosen completely at random from the whole electorate to those where allotment was applied to smaller groups such as those volunteering or those selected in another way. Most proposals referred to the allotment of the governing juries in the democracy of Ancient Greece, where selection by lot was considered to be more democratic than election:
| “ | I mean, for example, that it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot, for them to be elected is oligarchic.[45] | ” |
However, at present within the UK, this form of selection is mainly restricted to the allotment of jurors. Opposition is based either on the practical need for some expertise amongst members of the upper chamber or on a belief that "Democracy means an elected second chamber".[46]
The reason that the UK almost uniquely (except for Canada) still retained an appointed second chamber in 1997 was that it was widely accepted that it worked effectively. In particular the large number of cross bench peers would be impossible to achieve in most electoral systems.
| “ | The great strength of the Lords is that it contains not just a bunch of experienced retired MPs but a whole raft of individuals with specialist knowledge and experience from the worlds of commerce, medicine, the services, the civil service, academia, the unions - the list is endless - none of whom would be likely to be available to stand for election. (Lord Steel, former Alliance leader)[47] | ” |
Those supporting a fully appointed House reject the idea of a composite partly elected, party appointed House:
| “ | I can think of nothing more destructive of the present harmonious atmosphere in the Lords. Elected members would be justifiably incensed if the votes of appointed members happened to determine any issue before the house.[47] | ” |
The main issues are:[44]
By far the most commonly suggested proposal for reform amongst politicians is a combination of an elected and appointed House and this was the original proposal recommended by the Wakeham Report. Proponents suggest the combination would allow an appointed element to retain the skills and experience of the present House and elections would make it democratic without the problems of being fully elected which would allow the Upper House to challenge the primacy of the Commons. Opponents say that the two types of members will inevitably conflict, voting for part of the House will have little support amongst an already sceptical electorate, and the lack of synergy will make it worse than either a fully elected or fully appointed house. Various proposals on the exact percentage of those elected and appointed have been produced:
Under this proposal, a jury would appoint some or all members of the chamber so retaining the skills and experience of the present House and also making its selection more democratic;[49] the jury being considered to give democratic legitimacy to the appointments without the problems of mandating the House through elections which might lead to a potential conflict with the Commons. It was a minority "grass roots option"[49] not seen before the second consultation where it was supported by around 10% of submissions.
Many countries have directly elected Upper Chambers but they try to make their electoral systems for the second chamber as distinct as possible from the first chamber by holding elections on a different cycle or electing only a proportion of members on each occasion.[44] Many politicians such as Tony Benn maintain that elections are necessary to be democratic: "Democracy means an elected second chamber",[46].
According to the Government report, the advantages of an elected Upper House are:[44]
The main disadvantages are:
Many submissions from the public rejected the notion that an elected Upper House would be democratic, basing their assertion on the model of the Athenian democracy which did not elect either the Upper House or assembly. (The Athenian Upper House was a court allotted from all citizens, any citizen was able to attend the assembly)
The main variation between proposals for an elected Upper House is the form of election:
A large number of hereditary peers were crossbenchers with a wide range of interests outside politics. A hereditary right, which passes across the generations, may have the benefit of encouraging a longer-term perspective but this is perhaps at the expense of creating a divisive society. Moreover, in practice, the hereditary Peers had a natural bias on many issues (e.g., their support for the Conservative Party and also for fox hunting[50]). There are now few in current British politics who openly support this form of selection. However, there is a feeling in many sections of British society that an independent house is needed to check the government and it has been suggested that this was achieved by the combination of hereditary and life peers pre-1997 era.
About 30% of overseas second chambers are elected by indirect methods, including the upper houses of France, the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, South Africa and the pre-1913 United States. The electoral college often consists of members of local authorities or regional assemblies, and may include members of the primary chamber. There are various proposals:
A system proposed by musician and activist Billy Bragg (and endorsed by the Economist magazine) whereby the share of each party's votes at each general election is aggregated and each party is allocated a number of places proportionately using a closed list system.[51] Each elector would have one vote which would both determine their local MP and the composition of the Upper House.
The advantages of this system are claimed to be that: there would be only one election campaign to fund, it does not waste votes because votes for minority parties will count in the Upper House and so it should improve voter turnout, and as the upper house has no direct vote it has no separate mandate and so the Commons will remain supreme. Critics however see a single vote as a choice between voting for an MP or voting for the upper house; if large numbers choose to vote for the upper house instead of their MP it would undermine the mandate of the Commons and create a confused election (for example MPs might be ousted by a poor performance of their party in the Upper House and vice versa).The Report suggested by Nick Clegg will be completed in the new year with a view to complete the bill by mid 2013.