Blog War: Wonko -v- Ayling on Electing the Lords

To see both side of this argument and both sets of comments on one page, click here

Gavin Ayling believes that we should elect the House of Lords. I don't and I'll explain why ...

The House of Commons is elected. To be elected to the House of Commons, you have to stand for election, publish a manifesto and win more votes than your opponents. This, for me, is where my opposition to an elected upper house lies and can be summed up in two words - Career Politicians.

Career politicians are in the job because they want to be, they have ambition. They have chosen a career path that involves them securing and using political power. They will do whatever it takes (usually within reason) to ensure that they get elected and stay elected. If that means abandoning one or more of their principles then more often than not they will make that sacrifice.

With the exception of a few independents, career politicians rely on their party to get them a seat and fund their campaign. In order to be chosen to represent their party in an election they must comply with party policy. In order to keep their seat they must continue to comply with party policy. When Traitor Blair first stood for election he stood on an anti-European manifesto and lost. Next time round he won and has since professed to be a committed European "always have been, always will be". Being pro-European is part of being Labour and even the Prime Minister, the leader of this country, has sold out on his principles to curry favour with the party.

Anyway, this is in danger of getting slightly off topic.

The House of Lords, prior to the election of the Liberal government at the turn of the last century, was entirely hereditary with the exception of Lords Spiritual that represented (and still do) the Church of England. Nobody in the House of Lords was elected, they were all there by virtue of birth and they had the authority to veto legislation coming from the Commons.

The Liberal government tried to pass a budget in 1910 that included a land tax that would have been especially detrimental to landowners. The Lords opposed the budget and the Liberal government conceived the Parliament Bill which would establish the ultimate supremacy of the Commons over the Lords. The Lords opposed the Bill until King George threatened to create 250 new Liberal peers to dilute the Conservative majority in the upper house. The Lords conceded and the bill was passed into law.

The Parliament Act of 1911 and the subsequent revision of 1949 conspired to allow the Commons to disregard the opinion of the Lords if they opposed bills proposed in the House of Commons.

The Parliament Act of 1911 was infrequently used but its most significant use was to pass the Parliament Act of 1949. The Lords, mindful that the Commons were giving themselves yet more power and removing more opposition, opposed the revised version of the Parliament Act. The Labour government of the day, under Clement Atlee, followed the example set by the Liberal government in 1911 and used king for political gain.

The 1911 Parliament Act specified that the Lords would have to oppose a bill over three sessions of parliament before the Parliament Act could be used to force the bill into law. The Labour government had the king engineer a short session of parliament so that the clause would be artifically met and they could use the Parliament Act to force through the revised Parliament Act giving themselves more power.

The 1949 Parliament Act was also used infrequently until the current Labour government came to power since when it has been used more times than every other previous government combined to over-rule the will of the upper house.

The problem here is with the desire for power which career politicians naturally crave. It was a Liberal government consisting of career politicians that first nutured their overseers in 1911 and a Labour government of career politicians in 1949 that further removed the checks and balances to their power.

Lord Acton said "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men." He said this 24 years before the 1911 Parliament Act came into being, I wonder if he had a vision of the future?

Ok, that's the history lesson over and done with.

The most important thing to remember about hereditary peers is that they sat in the upper house by virtue of birth. Their political affiliation was irrelevant. It was quite conceivable to have a Labour peer in the House of Lords that opposed policies of the Labour government despite being a member of that party. This could rarely happen in the Commons and certainly for no longer than the time of the next election when they would be replaced with a party faithful candidate.

There is, of course an issue of accountability with hereditary peers. Who keep an eye on them? Who can oppose them if they do something that isn't considered to be right? Well, without an impartial (as impartial as it can be) upper house, who will keep an eye on the Commons? The electorate? Sadly, most people would vote for the same party if they fielded a goldfish as their candidate so as bizarre as it sounds, the elctorate cannot be relied upon to protect their own interests!

A key part of the appeal of hereditary peers for me is the fact that they are more likely to do what is "right" than a career politician. A career politician will do what they think their constituents think is "right" or what their party tells them is "right". If something is "right" for the country but wrong for their party and/or political future they are unlikely to make that decision. A hereditary peer will still be in a job whether they are popular or not.

Since the current Labour government "reformed" the House of Lords and did away with most of the hereditary peers, they have appointed themselves a majority in the upper house. If the Lords were to be elected, it is simply not imaginable that the people would elect opposing parties to each house. The dominant party in the Commons would be the dominant party in the Lords so where is the opposition and oversight that is required?

Effective oversight of the Commons requires impartiality of the Lords. The only way to ensure that the make-up of the Lords is random enough to make this conceivable is to have hereditary peers.

Finally, I have a proposal that will resolve the issue of hereditary Lords over-ruling the Commons and the requirement for laws to be passed without the consent of the Lords. The answer, I feel, lies not in handicapping the upper house but in arbitration. I would like to see the Parliament Act further amended to replace the clause that allows the Commons to pass a law without consent of the Lords after it has been delayed for three sessions of parliament with a clause that provides for a binding referendum, thus allowing the people to decide on matters that both houses cannot agree on.

Apologies for the scrappy nature of this post but it was a bit rushed.

Comments for this arguement

Wonko`s World

As long as you think it was worth it.
JRH | Homepage | 19.04.06 - 9:49 pm | #

I think it was worth it!

With your penultimate paragraph you destroyed my beliefs... A binding referendum would solve my concerns at a stroke -- it is democratic and fair.

But, and this I think damages your argument, if the people (the electorate) cannot be trusted to "protect their own interests" and would vote for the same party whether they fielded non-mammals or humans, why should they ultimately be trusted with a referendum?

I like the idea, but why do you!?
Gavin Ayling | Homepage | 19.04.06 - 9:58 pm | #

Well, what can I say? You caved in easier than I expected.

I can answer your concern for you. The people will vote for a party in an election but voting on an issue is different. Sure, one party will often be supporting the issue more than others but the crucial thing is, the bill must have been passed by a majority in the Commons to come before the Lords so there must be a consensus in the Commons between all parties. Therefore, most people would vote on the merits of the issue in question rather than the party that originally introduced the bill.
wonkotsane | Homepage | 19.04.06 - 10:12 pm | #

Personally I have a lot of faith in the power of referenda. I don't think I've caved in!

Do you know why referenda are not allowed in the German constitution?
Gavin Ayling | Homepage | 19.04.06 - 11:00 pm | #

yes, its because Hitler used referenda to gain powers, so the German government don't allow them anymore.

I can see problems with both ideas, an elected lords leads to the problems wonk mentioned about party loyalty, but there is a lot of problems with hereditary Lords.
For example:

* The changing demographics of this country. We might be only 10% ethnic minority at the moment but there is a huge disparity for people of different age groups. In 20-40 years when a lot of the older whites have died, the highly mixed race country that then exists wont want to see a 95% white hereditary lords chamber.

* Unaccountable, we had a loyal and patriotic Lords in the past but what if that was not the case and we couldn't get rid of them? What if they have radical Islam sympathies for example.

* I am conservative, but is it fair that a Conservative revising chamber continually blocks changes from a left liberal government if that government won overwhelmingly at the general election? I don't think so. By your rules how could this be stopped?

* What if the hereditary peer just wasn't smart enough, what if a peer dies but had no children? It means more appointment of some kind..

There are other ways of electing that might not produce the same party loyalty you are worried about, perhaps we could have a PR system as Gavin said but instead of being over the last elections results being over the last 3 or 4, and only changing a few Lords each time so that they were not connected to the main electoral cycle and had a long period of time in the house maybe 10-15+ years so they couldn't easily be manipulated by the party leadership.

To stop career politicans I think if the Lords is only revising and doesn't have powers to alter laws it won't be a big enough thrill for that kind of people? They want more than that.
Dave | 20.04.06 - 2:08 am | #

If there was a Tory majority in the Lords and a Labour majority in the Commons and the Lords blocked a Labour policy 3 times in line with the Parliament Act then a public referendum would be called and it would be up to the electorate to decide. This means the political makeup of both houses is irrelevant when it comes to deadlocks as it will be the people that decide. Allowing the Commons the right to pass a law blocked by the Lords 3 times is like allowing a criminal to commit a crime after being caught 3 times. Ok, not entirely like that but a similar principle - it has been decided that stealing a car is wrong so the criminal has been told not to steal a car but if the criminal thinks it's ok then after being caught 3 times he can continue to steal cars with impunity. You see the parallel? The Lords block legislation for a reason and who is to say that they are right or wrong? In these cases the people would decide what they want.

Re a peer dying with no heirs - there are laws in place already that deal with succession of peerages so that's a non-issue.
wonkotsane | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 9:40 am | #

The Lords should be elected - absolutely no doubt about it. I can't see how we can rein against the legitimacy of unelected regional assemblies on one hand and tamely aquiesce to a benevolent legislatative club where entry is via an accident of birth on the other.

It has to be elected - but I would time the elections to be held at the mid term time of a Commons Parliament. That way a balance will be achieved because cynism and weariness of an incumbent leader will have taken its toll on the electorate..... They do it in many other countries, and it works - most notably in the States - were the incumbent President is subject to the natural checks and balances between the House of Representatives and the Senat -.both of which quite often have majorities from the 2 main parties at the same time.

This way, you are more likely to get say a Labour majority in the Commons and a Tory majority in the Lords - and thus a natural balance is achieved. Making the Lords a PR project will increase the representational mix even more.

To combat the 'career politician' concern, I would stick an age limit on entry. Say 35 years of age - so the candidate will already have had a career in industry/commerce etc.- and they would therefore be able to bring a knowledge of note to the Lords.... - rather be just another Tory boy or Blairite clone.

BUT - all this is in an ideal world, obviously. When England gets its own legislature, what happens to it then?
alfie | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 11:24 am | #

What would be the point of having two elected chambers??

If you want an elected House of Lords (as well as an elected House of Commons) then you're basically calling for a wasteful duplication. Waste of time, space and money.

Instead it would be better to have a single-chamber Parliament.

Better still would be to go back to how things were. A House of Lords - hereditary (and of course there would be the occasional awarding of new peerages) - and a House of Commons - elected (and the chamber where most government ministers would come from).

Let me just say that democracy is okay, but in moderation. You can have a democratic system of government without having all its institutions democratically elected. Our government is democratic, yet we have an undemocratic chamber of Parliament and a monarchy at the top.

I therefore oppose a fully-elected House of Lords. I suspect a compromise will be the eventual result of the reforms. A 60% elected house, with appointments given to non-political (and meritocratic) membership.
Proud Salopian | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 1:16 pm | #

wonk, your referenda idea doesn't solve the problem of the Lords abusively blocking legislation because if had to block it 3 times before the referendum, they could slow down the parliament so much that the elected government couldn't get much done.

And what is your answer to the changing demographics of this country? not a small issue.
A hereditary white Lords will not be acceptible when whites are no longer the majority in the country, as predicted by 2100 by the current rate of change.
Dave | 20.04.06 - 5:36 pm | #

Humpf.

I still don�t know what I believe. Both arguments are compelling, but both have flaws.

Can�t I just stick my head in the sand?
AJD | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 9:15 pm | #

Alfie, Labour are in their third term - we'd have seen a Labour majority in both houses for at least two terms by now. Also, putting an age restriction on MP's means you're always stuck with older people in the Commobs, no fresh blood. Also, to leave your job at 35 to become an MP is worse, career politician-wise, than someone who is in politics from the start of their working lives.

Salopian, a single chamber parliament means you are removing a (potentially) valuable oversight and check on the power of the Commons. It would be better to go back to hereditary peers, that's my preferred approach along with the amendment to the Parliament Act I mentioned at the end of my piece. Your final suggestion has one major flaw - non-politically motivated appointments to the Lords is supposed to happen now but it doesn't and won't.

Dave, the current Parliament Act has the 3 sessions of parliament clause already - my suggestion was only changing what happens after that has happened. If a law is that good that it is worth pursuing for 3 sessions of parliament then a delay isn't going to be an issue is it?

AJD, of course you can bury your head in the sand. Be my guest.
wonkotsane | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 10:06 pm | #

No, I said only people going to the House of Lords would have the 35 year old age limit. MPs would go into the Commons as happens now - so all those budding 18 year old William Hagues out there would be safe. Also - I think the Lords is currently populated with people that have jobs as well as a seat in the Upper Chamber. The Lords, after all is a reviewer and discusser of legislation - hardly ever an instigater of it. And regarding the voting - well if it the Lords elections were timed for a Commons mid term time, then the most recent one would have fallen right around the Iraq War, David Kelly, etc, etc. Somehow, I just don't think Blair would have won a majority in the Lords then....
alfie | Homepage | 20.04.06 - 11:36 pm | #

Sorry, misread what you wrote about the age limit. Um, well I suppose I don't see much of a problem with putting age restrictions on the Lords.

I can see what you're saying about the war and David Kelly damaging Labour but they gained popularity between the last Tory win and their first term so they would have taken the House of Lords a couple of years prior to taking the Commons.
wonkotsane | Homepage | 21.04.06 - 9:14 am | #

Until the Lords can enact legislation that imposes the burden of taxation upon me, I don't care who they are and how they got there.
Libertus | Homepage | 21.04.06 - 3:12 pm | #

The Lords can introduce a bill imposes taxes and send it to the Commons. Also, the Commons don't get to over-rule the Lords on money bills.
wonkotsane | Homepage | 21.04.06 - 4:31 pm | #

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Commenting by HaloScan

As announced on Monday Mr Wonko has mentioned to me that he doesn’t agree with the idea of an elected House of Lords….

Well, let me explain why I do.

The House of Lords is the second House. Its main tasks are to amend and block legislation that it doesn’t believe are appropriate or safe and to pass legislation that it does believe is safe.

Throughout the greater part of the 20th Century the party in power in the House of Commons switched, with relative frequency, between the two main parties. Each party, while in power, appointed new Lords to the House from their own political affiliation and others. The majority, of course, with political sympathy for the party in power. This has meant that, in the main, the Lords who are appointed have been reasonably balanced but have favoured the Conservatives because they were in power more than Labour.

The Lords, though, also include Heriditary Lords; Lords who are Lords because their family was rich or liked by the King or Queen long ago. So the House which can block or allow legislation to pass is, to all intents and purposes, Conservative.

Before the 2nd World War (lazy as it may seem, I haven’t bothered to check when for this post) the party in power threatened to stuff the House with loads of liberal sympathisers and, to avoid this happening, the Conservative opposition allowed the Parliament Act to pass. This act allows the House of Commons to pass legislation without the House of Lords’ approval so long as it is presented several times. It hasn’t been invoked many times because the House of Lords, by convention, does not oppose laws that are included in a party’s manifesto.

The House of Lords, then, is useless if a Government really wants to pass an ill-considered law.

I have recently (thanks Ed) been reading about whether if being “democratic” is necessarilly a good thing. The book (link may be added later) offers the example of a democratic decision being made about religious freedom; it is democratic to allow people to vote on other people’s right to practise a religion, but not necessarily a ‘good’ thing.

That said, that the HoL is not democratic can be assumed to be a bad thing when its primary roles are to make decisions on the validity of laws made by a democratic institution.

So how would an elected HoL differ from the House of Commons? What’s the point of having two elected Houses?

The House of Commons is elected using First Past the Post (FPTP). Each constituency can choose one MP and, if you live in a ’safe’ seat, your vote is effectively useless. The Electoral Commission works hard to try to ensure that the result of elections is reasonably fair. The danger with this method (as has been shown to real effect recently) is that one party could have 49% of the voters in every constituency and win no seats. The Labour Party polled approximately the same proportion of the votes in 1992 and in 2005. But the result was different!

The great things about the way the House of Commons is elected, though, are that each person in the country has only one MP and there are rarely hung parliaments.
- Each MP knows that they are individually accountable to their electorate and, ideally, they work for the people in their constituency. If an MP doesn’t do what they are supposed to, they can be thrown out as happened to gift George Galloway a seat at the last election.
- Because each area returns an MP from only one party, it is rare for one party to fail to get an absolute majority. This sort of failure means that none of the winning parties’ radical policies can be implemented and no-one gets what they want.

So, for all its flaws, FPTP is an excellent way to elect Members to the Parliament which proposes Law and which, under the British system, makes up the Executive.

But for a second House, one which is screening laws for dangerous irregularities, or protecting the constitution, an absolute majority is not necessary. In fact, an absolute majority of any party would make the House either useless or obstructive. So the second House would benefit from either proportional representation (PR) or different-sized constituencies or both. A second House elected by PR would reflect, hopefully, the public’s feelings on matters, and would have an unambiguous mandate to block laws or ask for amendments.

The European Union’s pathetic Parliament is elected by PR in super-constituencies. Where I live in the South East, we overwhelmingly elected Conservative and UKIP MEPs. But, because of PR, there are MEPs for other parties too. What this does, in effect, is make the MEPs non-accountable. I cannot approach my MEP, because there are several. If I do approach one, it is not likely to be an MEP for a party I didn’t vote for; in fact, it’s more likely that I’ll approach one for the party that I did vote for. But then there is more than one MEP for that party. This poses two problems: (1) I may not like the politics of one of the candidates but like the politics of the other (so which party should I vote for) and (2) neither candidate has any real compulsion to help me.

In the House of Commons this would pose real problems for the electorate and, I would suggest, result in greater apathy than already exists. But in the House of checks and balances (currently known as the House of Lords), it doesn’t matter. These people are not representing you in specific times of trouble, or over decisions that matter to you — they’re just representing your opinion when it comes to the laws made by the House of Commons.

If I were completely out of touch with my senses and wanted to vote BNP, Green or Communist, my vote wouldn’t be wasted. My opinions would be reflected by an equal proportion of Green “Peers” who would make my opinion on laws known and would block (in as much as they could) any non-green laws. Likewise if I had voted BNP, the politically correct anti-racism laws that I was opposed to would be voted against by the same proportion of “Peers” as there were voters in the country.

Hopefully, the BNP and Greens would not get many votes. They would almost certainly not get enough votes to block any legislation. But at least the opinions of those relatively unusual people would not be completely ignored by the system.

A return to an entirely Heriditary HoL is another option. But this poses the unanswerable question: Why would we assume that a child of someone assumed a good judge of a law, a good judge of a law himself. It is an accepted fact that companies who’s ownership is handed down from father to son etc. do less well than companies who’s manager is the person most suitable for the job. And who better, in the case of the second House, than the people to decide who that should be?

So, in summary, currently the HoL is impotent and has no democratic mandate. And an elected HoL would have a democratic mandate and real and appropriate power. What more could you want (other than a President — but that’s another debate)?

Posted In: Political, EUssr, EU, David Cameron, Tory, Socialist, News and Politics, Conservative, Labour, Green, Police state, Liberal Democrats, Libertarian, UKIP, Parties, Multicultural, Liberty

Wonko Says:
April 19th, 2006 at 9:05 pm

Yes, I concede that PR has the potential to elect an opposition in the House of Lords but it still results in a party political outcome and the members are still career politicians chosen by, and representing, their party.

Gav Says:
April 19th, 2006 at 9:10 pm

I agree — which is why I didn’t contend those points in my comment on your post!

I think we’re both agreed that the HoL needs reform (and serious, democratically sensitive — though not necessarily democratic — reform).

Wonko Says:
April 19th, 2006 at 9:13 pm

Reform, how I detest that word!

Yes, I agree that major changes are needed and (not wanting to appear to be blowing my own trumpet) I really think my idea about referenda has legs if only the career politicians could be convinced of its merits.

Dave Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 1:21 am

My biggest concern of an elected Lords Chamber, is that previously the Lords have been very loyal defenders of British traditions and way of life.
If they are elected, people who don’t have the same loyalty to traditional Britain might get into the Lords Chamber and not fight to maintain our culture as much as the old generation. At first that wouldn’t matter, but over a period of time we could see big changes.

How long before we get quotas, for women, blacks, muslims, asians, etc. As no doubt Dave Cameron would support.
I’m not saying I want the Lords to remain whites, I know we have a changing country, but I do want the Lords to be a revising chamber with an eye on the traditions, history and culture of what made this country, and not become some new game for the ‘politically correct’ to play identity politics with.

Gav Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 6:56 am

Most of the PC policies will be included in the manifestos of the main two parties at the next election so the Lords won’t block it anyway. The biggest problem with the Lords is that they are often, by convention, impotent.

wonkotsane Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 8:39 am

Using by proposal for binding referenda when the Commons and Lords can’t agree then the issue of quotas would be decided by the electorate. The Commons would introduce a bill to provide quotas in the Lords, the Lords would obviously reject it, they wouldn’t agree so a referendum would be held and the electorate would decide.

Sarah Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 9:52 am

Gav if the HoL was fully elected do you think it should have the power to block legislation indefinately? I do, IMO, it would have as much legitimacy as the commons then.

On a related note what do you think of fixed/rotating/different length election terms for an elected HoL?

alfie Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 10:21 am

The Lords should be elected - absolutely no doubt about it. I can’t see how we can rein against the legitimacy of unelected regional assemblies on one hand and tamely aquiesce to a benevolent legislatative club where entry is via an accident of birth on the other.

It has to be elected - but I would time the elections to be held at the mid term time of a Commons Parliament. That way a balance will be achieved because cynism and weariness of an incumbent leader will have taken its toll on the electorate….. They do it in many other countries, and it works - most notably in the States - were the incumbent President is subject to the natural checks and balances between the House of Representatives and the Senate -.both of which quite often have different majorities from the 2 main parties at the same time.

This way, you are more likely to get say a Labour majority in the Commons and a Tory majority in the Lords - and thus a natural balance is achieved. Making the Lords a PR project will increase the representational mix even more.

To combat the ‘career politician’ concern, I would stick an age limit on entry. Say 35 years of age - so the candidate will already have had a career in industry/commerce etc.- and they would therefore be able to bring a knowledge of note to the Lords…. - rather be just another Tory boy or Blairite clone.

BUT - all this is in an ideal world, obviously. When England gets its own Parliament, what happens to it then?

Dave Says:
April 20th, 2006 at 4:59 pm

Gav, maybe you misunderstood what I was saying, I was not saying I wanted the house of Lords to block PC legislation from the Commons, although I would like that .

I was saying with an elected Lords I can see the main parties fighting over who has the most Black Lords, Asian Lords, Muslim Lords, Gay Lords, etc, I don’t want to see the Lords become part of this politically correct identity politics game.
I don’t think we will get the best revising chamber under some kind of affirmative action.

Alfie, I really wouldn’t like to see a system of constantly swapping Labour majority in commons vs Conservatives in Lords, or the other way around, both ways around the Lords would try to frustrate the will of the commons.

Don't Elect the House of Lords

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