reforming the house of lords - electoral reform society · house of lords act 1999 92 total 816...

Reforming theHouse of LordsWhy maintaining the status quo isn’t an option

In association with

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FACTS & FIGURES

Who lives in a House like this?

Conservative

213

Labour

231 Liberal Democrats

90Crossbench

181

Bishops

26Other

75

Total

816

Archbishops and bishops

26

Life peers under theAppellate JurisdictionAct 1876

23

Life peers under the LifePeerages Act 1958

675

Hereditary peers under theHouse of Lords Act 1999

92

Total

816

Manifesto pledges

� Conservatives We will work to build aconsensus for a mainly-elected second chamberto replace the currentHouse of Lords,recognising that anefficient and effectivesecond chamber shouldplay an important role in our democracy andrequires both legitimacyand public confidence.

� LabourWe will ensure that thehereditary principle isremoved from the Houseof Lords. Furtherdemocratic reform tocreate a fully electedsecond chamber will then be achieved instages. We will consultwidely on theseproposals and on anopen-list proportionalrepresentation electoralsystem for the secondchamber, before puttingthem to the people in areferendum.

� Liberal DemocratsReplace the House ofLords with a fully-electedsecond chamber withconsiderably fewermembers than the current House.

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16 JULY 2012 | NEW STATESMAN | 3

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Contents16 July 2012

What does the upper chamber actually do? 5 House of Lords: leaping into action 12

Articles 2 Who lives in a House like this? The composition of the House of Lords 4 Right functions, wrong people Katie Ghose on why reform is needed 5 Lording it up Meg Russell questions the effectiveness of the upper chamber6 The importance of being equal Alan Johnson says this is an issue of credibility 8 Dawn of a new era Mark Harper explains the changes as laid out in the bill 10 At a crossroads House of Lords reform has divided opinion 12 Fertile territory The Lords is vulnerable to lobbyists, says Peter Bingle 13 A leap of faith We need to trust peers will be objective, writes Harmit Kambo 14 The last word Our political system needs fixing, argues Tim Farron 15 Myth buster Setting the record straight on the House of Lords

The New Statesman is printed on 100 per cent recycled eco-friendly paper

The right thing to do for our democracyFor more than a century, politicians have grap-pled with the issue of House of Lords reform.Last month, a bill was presented to parliamentthat aims to resolve the issue once and for all.

At its heart is the requirement that 80 percent of House of Lords members are to beelected by the British public for a non-renew-able 15-year term. Gone will be the life peers,and in their place a system that enables mem-bers to resign, to be expelled and to be sus-pended. No longer will members be able to

claim £300 a day simply for turning up; in-stead pay will be related to their level of inputinto parliamentary business.

Opponents to the bill claim there is no publicappetite for it; that it is a waste of parliamen-tary time; that an elected Lords would chal-lenge the authority of the House of Commons.

Yet these voices have failed to acknowledgeone crucial factor – that an unelected secondchamber has no place in a country that pridesitself on its democratic principles. l

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First published as a supplement to the New Statesman issue of 16 July 2012© New Statesman Ltd. All rightsreserved. Registered as anewspaper in the UK and USA.

This supplement, and other policy reports, can be downloaded from the NS website at newstatesman.com/supplements

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The publication of the government bill onHouse of Lords reform has unleashed allthe anticipated reactions from all theusual quarters. Amidst the outpouring ofappreciation for the 800 incumbents noone has explained why so many unelected people should continue to legislate in our names.

Had there been a majority Labour gov-ernment after the 2010 General Electionsthen the party would have implementedits manifesto promise to hold a public referendum and the British people wouldbe preparing for its first elected UpperHouse. A Lib-Lab coalition may well havefollowed this path, or negotiations couldplausibly have led to legislation without a referendum.

Instead the Liberal Democrats are ingovernment, defeated on AV, and strug-gling to keep House of Lords reform aliveas Labour politicians refuse to help themfinish the job that they started. Of courseLabour is tempted by tactical politics. Butas Labour MP Malcolm Wicks has said:“Parliament is at its most short-term andpathetic if it is just about giving Clegg a bloody nose. If this is lost, it is gone for ageneration.”

Responsible reformThere are now two questions for Labour.The first is whether achieving any Lordsreform will better equip parliament as awhole to hold the government to account.The second is whether a referendumshould be a veto on the progress that alargely elected Upper House represents.

Peter Hennessy summed up my evidence to the joint committee on Lords

reform as the “right functions, wrongpeople”. This is a fair assessment. Noth-ing could be less representative than the current London-centric incumbents. A wholly or mainly elected chamber isbound to be more reflective of Britain today. As politics and people grow moredistant, this is one step towards tacklingthe out-of-touch stain on our politics. Free from patronage and faced with elec-tors it is in the parties’ gift to select talented individuals, willing to give 15years of public service who will bring andgrow their expertise on the job. If BarackObama can bring his community ac-tivism to the Senate and into the

presidency why do we doubt our abilityto attract the best? An independent-friendly voting system (STV) would be aanother shot in the arm for high profilenon-party candidates. It should be em-braced by any doubters worried about arevised chamber being overly partisan.

The current proposals would see theproportion of appointed to elected peersdecrease slightly from 30 per cent to 20per cent, but it is a safe bet that a slimmerchamber, with payment and fixed termswould mean that a far higher proportionthan now were active in the chamber.

Those who plead delay convenientlyforget that the bill is yet to go through

parliament and could readily be altered,especially given the coalition govern-ment’s vulnerability on the issue. Furthermore, the transition from 2015 to2025 gives opportunities for in-built reviews at every phase.

On a referendum, Labour is not unreasonable in arguing for a public ballot. After all there is no rulebook forwhen a referendum should or should notbe used. But it should be careful what itcalls for. The spectre of the best fundedNo campaign ever looms: with hundredsof turkeys digging deep into their pockets.

Good enoughThe reform proposals may not be perfect,there are aspects which would certainlyhave been different under a Labour-ledgovernment. However, they are a vastimprovement on the status quo. If Wicksis right and the establishment manages topull together an odd coalition of MPswho think the reforms are both too timidand too far-reaching, will anyone remember in a generation that thedeputy prime minister of the day had aset-back in 2012? Voters are more likely todespair about the daily squabbling andgamesmanship over an issue that is waydown their shopping list. Labour couldinstead revel in seeing so many Conser-vatives forced to support a reform theyhoped would meet a quick end. And takeheart in having one less worrisome subject for an incoming Labour govern-ment – or one less to clutter up Lib-Labcoalition talks. lKatie Ghose is the chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society

REASONS FOR REFORM

This is an opportunity to better represent the British electorate

“Right functions,wrong people”

By Katie Ghose

This is one steptowards tackling thestain on our politics

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House of Lords reform has been muchdiscussed. Yet what is often asked, andless well understood, is what contributionthe chamber makes to the policy process.If reform is to be effective, it should beguided by what the Lords does now andwhat we would like it to do better.

The Lords’ most obvious and visiblecontribution comes through its occa-sional confrontations with government.Since May 2010 the coalition has suffered49 defeats in the Lords, including on re-forms to welfare, health, legal aid, aboli-tion of quangos, and parliamentaryboundaries. After the chamber’s reformin 1999 the Blair and Brown governmentssuffered more than 450 Lords defeats: anaverage of 40 per year. Showdowns oncivil liberties matters, such as trial by juryand detention of terrorist suspects with-out charge, became familiar. There were

also numerous lower-key defeats, oftenon relatively technical matters of goodgovernance. Under Labour, the issueswhere the government was vulnerable inthe Lords were those on which the Con-servatives and Liberal Democrats couldunite. Now those latter parties are inpower, defeats occur where Labour canattract support from independent Cross-benchers, and perhaps government rebels.

The Commons of course remains theprimary chamber, and hence Lords de-feats can be overturned. But research byUniversity College London (UCL) showsthat almost half of Lords defeats “stick”and are ultimately accepted. Sometimesthis is because government reflects anddecides that the Lords was right, or justthinks it not worth getting into a pro-tracted argument. Sometimes the gov-ernment sees that public opinion sup-

ports the Lords’ position, or realises it willstruggle to get its own MPs to vote itdown. Just occasionally government getsit wrong, as occurred when the peersblocked a new offence of religious hatred,and Blair’s government was defeated inthe Commons when it sought to over-turn this. The Lords itself is sensitive toboth public and government backbenchopinion. Hence peers blocked Blair’sfoundation hospitals after a big rebellionamong Labour MPs, but later let the policythrough when the rebels melted away.

Behind closed doorsThat may be the visible side of Lords’ im-pact. But far more is achieved through ne-gotiation than through defeat. Frequentlyministers accept peers’ proposals, againpartly because fair points are being made,and partly because government fears theconsequences of refusing to compromise.The fact it has no majority in the Lords iscrucial. Unlike in the Commons, votescannot be won just through appealing toparty loyalty, and there must be at least asemblance of courtesy and listening to theother side. The presence of the Cross-benchers, in particular, means debatesrarely descend into partisan point-scoring.

This same culture applies to non-leg-islative work, including debates, commit-tees and questions to ministers, where theLords tend to take a less combative ap-proach and conduct detailed inquiries, of-ten into long-term or technical issues.

Would this change if the Lords wereelected? First, an elected chamber wouldbe more conventionally political. Whilemost peers are party politicians, manyhave previously held high office and it isthe blend of them with “experts” fromoutside politics that gives the chamber itsunique culture. Elected members wouldbe younger, more ambitious, and perhapsless prone to reflection, compromise ortechnical work. Hence something wouldcertainly be lost. Second, it is widely ac-cepted that an elected house would be lesslikely to back down over conflict with gov-ernment. This is one of the main potentialbenefits of reform – although not all see itthat way. The increased confidence of thepost-1999 chamber, once the hereditarypeers departed, has surprised many. Theextent to which this assertiveness wouldgrow with an elected chamber – andwhether this would be good for Britain – isthe central unanswerable question. lDr Meg Russell is deputy director of theConstitution Unit at UCL

The upper chamber: scrutinising policy, confronting government

POWER AND INFLUENCE

What exactly does the House of Lords do? And is it even any good at it?

Lording it upBy Meg Russell

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It is hardly surprising that, in its112 year history, Labour has vacillated on some of its found-ing principles. Keir Hardie’scommitment to a National Mini-mum Wage fell foul of the trade

union movement’s 1970s mantra thatrights at work could only come with aunion card. Thus it was that TradesUnion Congress delegates voted against aminimum wage well into the 1980s.

Our early allegiance to ProportionalRepresentation only lasted until thelandslide victory under First Past the Post(FPTP) in 1945 six years before one ofFPTP’s little perversions handed powerback to the Conservatives (which polled aquarter of a million fewer votes).

The policy that most clearly connectsHardie with Ed Miliband is reform of theHouse of Lords. Along with universalsuffrage, an accountable second chamberhas been the defining constitutionalcharacteristic of a party established topursue a more equal society.

However, early idealism had to be tem-pered by the realities of gaining and exer-cising power; we continued to abhor a

parliament based on inheritance and patronage. Attlee reduced its powers,Wilson and Callaghan changed its com-position. None of them had the benefit ofa cross-party consensus to radically alterthis anachronistic institution.

As with the National Minimum Wage(and Hardie’s other great constitutionalobjective – a Scottish parliament) it was,ironically, New Labour that began theprocess of delivering some of the party’soriginal objectives.

Labour’s 1997 manifesto, focused as itwas on the 21st century, stated that:

“The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial self-contained reform, not dependent on further reformin the future, the right of hereditary peersto sit and vote in the House of Lords willbe ended by statute. This will be the firststage in a process of reform to make theHouse of Lords more democratic and representative.”

The “self-contained” reform proved tobe the easy bit with 655 hereditary peersleaving the Chamber and the residue of 92(now 90) remaining only until the nextstage of reform.

THE CASE FOR REFORM

House of Lords reform is an issue of credibility for the Labour party

The importanceof being equal

By Alan Johnson

As a result of that change, parliamentconvened in November 1999 with a sec-ond chamber that was far smaller (andpolitically balanced) than at any time inits history. The Lords had only 16 moremembers than the Commons, but with-out that elusive “next stage” of reformpatronage has accelerated to fill the gapleft by the departing hereditary peers tothe point where it threatens to wipe outthe relatively modest constitutional gainsthose 1999 reforms achieved.

There are now 141 more peers thanthere were 13 years ago. The coalitionagreement seeks to raise the number by a further 203 (to reflect the last generalelection result). Taken together with thereduction of MPs, there is every prospectthat by 2015 the House of Lords will havealmost twice as many appointed orhereditary members as those elected tothe Commons.

Only two other countries have a second chamber larger than the first –

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Kazakhstan and Burkina Faso. I doubt ifeither of those can match the unrepre-sentative nature of our bloated House ofLords. Some 44 per cent of peers are fromLondon and the South East; under a fifthare women and there are more peers agedover 90 than under 40.

But the most serious criticism of theLords remains its democratic illegitimacyand its institutionalised snobbery.

The dictionary definition of aLord is a master, a feudal su-perior, a dominant person.Our quest for a fairer societycan never succeed while wetolerate this embodiment of

privilege at the heart of our democracy.There are few politicians prepared to

defend the indefensible. But there areplenty whose commitment to reformacts as a cover for preserving the statusquo. Division over the details of reformhave protected the Lords for a century

and are capable of doing so indefinitely.Now Labour faces a very real test over the government’s proposals for the sec-ond stage of reform that we promised in 1997.

A test not just because David Cameronmanaged to change Conservative policyto the extent that their 2010 manifestocommitted to “a mainly elected secondchamber” (thus providing an unprece-dented consensus and an unarguable casefor the Parliament Act to be used to forcethis through the Lords).

It is also a test of our determination tobring about genuine change in a countryshocked by the scandalous failure of itsinstitutions. Ed Miliband deserves to bethe beneficiary of a public mood that seespreservation of the old order almost inthe same way that the post-war genera-tion saw the 1930s. He cannot succeed if

the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) decide that playing games with the coalition is more important than estab-lishing real constitutional reform. Thepublic may well suspect that the aim is to preserve a lucrative retirement homefor MPs.

Of the many cross-party attempts to move this issue forward over the lastdecade, the most impres-sive was Breaking theDeadlock. Funded by the

Joseph Rowntree Foundation and pub-lished under the auspices of UCL in 2005,the report argued for a chamber of 400members, predominately elected by asystem of PR, serving a single period ofoffice in a House with no governmentmajority. It provided the blue print uponwhich the current proposed legislation isbased and of the five MPs who authoredit, two, (Ken Clarke and George Young)are now Cabinet members as are twoprominent supporters (William Hagueand Francis Maude).

As we have discovered with family-friendly employment rights and same-sex marriage, a progressive illusion maynot survive the reality of Conservativeopinion but the debate that Labour beganhas shifted public and political opinionto a significant extent. To be critical ofDavid Cameron on this issue at a timewhen he has led his party towards a position first established by great Labourfigures such as Robin Cook and TonyWright is to indulge in the worst kind ofopportunist, tribal politics.

Constitutional change requires a public referendum and it is right that we challenge the absence of one in thecoalition’s proposals. It is consistent withour stance on a range of issues from devolution to changing the voting sys-tem. The proposal that should be put tothe British electorate has been largely determined over 15 years of debate during which necessary compromiseshave been made on all sides of thereform argument. It is now time to buildon that work in order to establish asmaller, mainly elected second chamberwhich has democratic legitimacy andpublic support.

This may well be a test of modernityfor the Conservative Party; but it is also atest of credibility for Labour. lAlan Johnson is MP for Kingston uponHull West and Messle

The roots of Lords reform lie in the traditions ofthe Labour party

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The coalition stands on the brink of anhistoric achievement. After more than ahundred years of debates, cross-partytalks, Green Papers, White Papers, Com-mand Papers and a Royal Commission, abill to reform the House of Lords has fi-nally been introduced into Parliament.

Our thinking has been heavily in-formed and influenced by the thoroughand thoughtful report produced by thecross party Joint Committee of MPs andpeers, which agreed with us on the funda-mental principles: the House of Lordsshould be mainly directly elected, itshould be significantly smaller, the firstelections should be held in May 2015 andshould be by proportional representa-tion, and the primacy of the House ofCommons will be maintained.

Following the committee’s comments,and evidence they received in the courseof their scrutiny, we have made some important changes to our original pro-posals. We have accepted their recom-mendation that the reformed Houseshould have 450 members instead of 300,and members will be elected by a Semi-Open List system rather than the SingleTransferable Vote.

Another important change, followingevidence from QCs including Lord Gold-smith and Lord Pannick, is that we have

included a clause on the face of the billemphasising that the Parliament Acts remain in force. This is an important addi-tion, which ensures the primacy of theHouse of Commons will be maintained.

Over the coming months, parliamentwill discuss the detail of our proposals. It will consider issues that range from thegreat to the small. However, even as wedebate the finest details of our plans, wewill never lose sight of the fundamentalprinciple behind the reform.

It’s a simple tenet – those who make thelaws of the land should be elected bythose who must abide by them.

This tends to be taken for granted inBritain today but it has been the drivingforce behind many of the great reforms ofthe last two hundred years – the 1832 Re-form Act, the introduction of universalsuffrage and the Parliament Acts of 1911and 1949. It lies at the centre of the philos-ophy of the coalition – that power shouldrest with the people not the state.

The government does, of course, recog-

nise that the House of Lords has manyqualities that are worth preserving. Wevalue the ability of peers to take the longview, to provide an alternative perspec-tive and to ensure legislation is of thehighest standard. Our reforms will en-sure that we keep what is good about theUpper House while allowing the peopleto decide who gets to act in their name.

I reject the idea that, because they arenot elected, peers are somehow automati-cally more expert, or have a broader rangeof experience than elected representa-tives. Members of the House of Com-mons include among their ranks doctors,ex-servicemen, lawyers and people fromall kinds of professional backgrounds. Weshould trust the public to elect the peoplethey believe will represent their views inthe legislative process.

Of course, the primary focus of thisgovernment remains sorting out theeconomy, creating jobs and reducing thedeficit and we will never lose sight of that.However, anyone who believes that thegovernment cannot focus on severalthings at once has neither considered thelessons of history nor studied theachievements of the coalition thus far.

The Butler Education Act, which revo-lutionised secondary education, waspassed in 1944, even as the United King-

LORDS REFORM BILL

The government wants to see an end to decades of discussion and procrastination over what to do with our second chamber

Dawn of a new era By Mark Harper

69 per cent of thepopulation support anelected House of Lords

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The House of Lords reform bill will see majorchanges to the way it operates

dom was locked in an existential strugglewith fascism. Indeed, on the very day thatlanding craft were arriving on the beachesof Normandy the House of Lords was de-bating Second Reading.

Dictated by democracyOf course, nobody is talking to me or mycolleagues about this on their doorsteps.We know it doesn’t appear anywherenear people’s top ten list of concerns.However, when asked, the overwhelm-ing majority reject the status quo andchoose the kind of changes we are bring-ing forward.

The will of the people is clear. Theyvoted for the manifestos of the three ma-jor parties in 2010, all of which promisedreform of the House of Lords.

In the 2010 British Social AttitudesSurvey, only 6 per cent believed that thestatus quo is acceptable. Ten times thatmany, almost 60 per cent, believe that atleast half of the House of Lords should beelected. These figures are consistentlybacked up by opinion polls, such as

YouGov in April 2012, which showedthat 69 per cent support an elected House.

This huge majority of the country thatwould prefer to elect its representativeswas joined on 23 April by the Joint Com-mittee on House of Lords reform, whichexhaustively scrutinised our draft bill andagreed with the principle of a mainlyelected House, as did the breakawaygroup that published a minority report onthe same day.

The Lords is unrepresentative of the UKas a whole, with members from Londonand the South East dominating the cham-ber. It is very unrepresentative of the people – four times as many members areover ninety as under forty, and over halfare over seventy. It is far from independ-ent-minded – 70 per cent of current peersare appointed on a party political basis,and they vote according to the party whipalmost as often as the elected House ofCommons. With over 800 members it isthe second largest chamber in the world,after the National People’s Congress ofChina. There are no realistic alternatives

to the government’s proposals for gettingthe size down to something sensible.Without reform, the Lords will continueto expand inexorably.

Proposals have been made to try andsort out some of these problems, notablyby Lord Steel, but tinkering around at theedges will not suffice. Comprehensive re-form is needed to drag the Lords into themodern day.

We believe our proposals provide thesecond chamber with democratic legiti-macy while preserving the best featuresof the current House and the primacy ofthe Commons.

So I think there has been enough talk-ing, and the process of legislating for ademocratically legitimate, mainly electedupper house has been gradual enough.

After over a century, now is the time tocomplete the process of reform. lMark Harper is minister for constitutionaland political reform

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committee to look at legislation and makerecommendations to the Commons,which would be the deciding body.

This committee should be a representa-tive gathering of people from differentparts of our society, which would not becalled Lords or enjoy any of the finery as-sociated with that chamber.

How such an advisory body could beestablished would require furtherthought, to be sure that it would be gen-uinely representative of experience andinterests and would have a contributionto make to legislation through its advice.

To do this would be to abolish theHouse of Lords altogether and start afreshin a way that was useful and constructive.

The Labour Party should be working onthis idea and should reject completely theproposals the coalition government hasbrought forward.Tony Benn is a former Labour MP who renounced his hereditary peerage

Tony Benn

Reject theproposals

The House of Lords is a medieval relicfrom a time when land ownership was amajor source of political power, and justas ownership of land moved from genera-tion to generation so did the titles. As theHouse of Commons became the primechamber the powers of the Lords wereeroded and life peerages broke the histor-ical link with land ownership.

This body we are commonly told mustbe replaced by one which is part electedand part-appointed; but it would in-evitably acquire – through election – anauthority that could be used to challengethe primacy of the Commons.

There is a case for a national advisory

OBSERVATIONS

At a crossroadsAndrew Harrop

It’s the end ofthe crusade

Thirteen years have passed sinceLabour’s “first stage” of House of Lordsreform. Promised as a step to a moredemocratic and representative chamber,the intervening years have been a proces-sion of consultations, talks and inconclu-sive votes. Each iteration of debate re-vealed still stronger resolve from theelected House of Commons, yet eachwas stymied.

This stuck-record should make Labourpoliticians of the time want to hang theirheads in shame. The party’s record ofdither and creep is the only reason it hasnow fallen to the coalition governmentto complete the process started in 1999.The least Labour can do is to give thechanges a fair wind.

The House of Lords bill published inJune may have emerged from thesausage-grinder of tortuous coalition negotiations. But whose plan is it really?In truth, the last Labour government’sfingerprints are all over it. The coalitionhas reverted to most of the details JackStraw crafted back in 2007 – 15 yearterms, region-wide constituencies andproportional representation by semi-open list. And it was five years ago underLabour that a majority of MPs endorsedthe 80:20 split between elected and appointed members as outlined in thecurrent bill.

So why is Labour so reluctant to en-dorse the proposals now?

Some within the party’s ranks say it is the wrong version of House of Lordsreform. Even though the proposals wereshaped and brokered by a Labour govern-ment, people suddenly worry that theyare too flawed to endorse. An unholy alliance of democratic purists and under-cover saboteurs suggest the bill should beresisted because Labour would do a better job with a blank sheet of paper ofits own.

After Labour’s shaming failure to drivethrough reform with 13 years at its dis-posal this argument lacks much plausi-bility. Even if the party does win in 2015, I for one would not put money on first-term House of Lords reform. InsteadLabour will find it much easier to amendthis legislation, if it so wishes, once the

House of Lords reform has divided opinion.Four insiders give us their views on which

direction to take

All talk, no action: it has taken 100 years to get proposals to this stage

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the lower House will remain enshrinedin the Parliament Acts. A limited numberof appointments will continue for non-party members of the House, tomaintain a measure of independent,non-partisan expertise in the chamber.

As New Statesman’s political editor,Rafeal Behr has urged, now is the time toact. The bill will be a key test of Labour’sgood faith on political reform. Can theirMPs put long-term progress ahead ofshort-term political advantage? And ifnot, does a future Labour government really want to start all over again?Paul Tyler is a member of the Joint Committee on the Draft House of LordsReform Bill and co-chair of the LiberalDemocrat Parliamentary Policy Committee on Constitutional and Political Reform.

Alan Renwick

STV is best for the Lords

The government’s original Lords reformplans provided for elections using theSingle Transferable Vote (STV) system.The new proposals retain STV’s propor-tionality, but switch to a system based onparty lists. STV is the long-cherishedgoal of many electoral reformers andused in Scottish local elections. List sys-tems, by contrast, have few Britishfriends and are familiar only from Euro-pean Parliament elections, where voterscan do no more than pick a party. Manyreform enthusiasts are deeply concerned.

The implications of the switch shouldnot be exaggerated. The list system willnot create a second chamber filled byparty stooges: non-renewable terms willweaken party managers’ blackmailingpower. And the proposed system is dif-ferent from the one used to elect ourMEPs. Voters will have the option to se-lect one candidate from their preferredparty’s list. Candidates who have wonbacking from at least 5 per cent of aparty’s voters will fill that party’s seatsfirst. Only if there aren’t enough suchcandidates will the party’s own rankingkick in.

On the other hand, STV gives votersmore opportunity to express their preferences than does the government’slist system: it lets voters rank all the candidates rather than choose just one.

STV also allows voters to support an in-dividual candidate but not his or herparty. A vote for a candidate under the listsystem is also a vote for the candidate’sparty and might help elect someone else.

Under STV, voters have full controlover which of the candidates get elected.Voters will have considerable power un-der the list system too. But just howmuch power will depend on how manyvoters cast a candidate vote and howmany options they can choose from: it is easier to hit the 5 per cent target ifmore candidate votes are spread overfewer prospective members. Voters inthe north east of the country – wherethere will be five seats to fill – will havefew candidates to choose from but con-siderable control over which of these areelected. Voters in the south east, by con-trast, with 16 seats, will have a widerchoice but a harder job in determiningthe outcome.

Finally, while independents can suc-ceed under either system, STV makestheir lives a little easier. Voters are morelikely to take a punt on an independentcandidate where they have multiple preferences under STV than a singlepreference under the list system. Andmany of the votes cast for a very popularindependent candidate will be wastedunder the list system, skewing the over-all result.

We should not presume that greatervoter choice and weaker parties are desir-able. If we are to be governed coherentlyand accountably, politics must be aboutnational policy platforms, not justcelebrity or local popularity. For elec-tions to the Commons – where the com-position of the government is at stake –the case against STV is strong.

But the second chamber is different.Contrary to the claims of the anti-reformers, the House of Lords would,under the coalition’s proposals, remain arevising chamber and not a governingone. What matters the most is the inde-pendent-mindedness and integrity ofmembers. In this context, STV is best.But the government’s flexible list systemis not so far behind. Supporters of changeshould accept it and concentrate on thecore battle of securing reform. lDr Alan Renwick is a reader in comparative politics at the University of Reading and author of A Citizen’sGuide to Electoral Reform Find more views on House of Lords reform on newstatesman.com

Christmas-phobic turkeys of the presentLords have started to depart.

Then there is the argument that Labourpromised a referendum on Lords reformin 2010. But was this a principled pledgeto the British population or a shady back-room deal in the dying days of the Brownera? The promised referendum was away to push through plans for a 100 percent elected chamber, against more cau-tious voices calling for a mixed chamber.Since a mixed chamber is the option onthe table the referendum argument be-comes a distraction. It was a promise for adifferent policy.

Lastly there is the sheer electoral prag-matism of the Labour insiders who preythat wrecking the bill will scupper theconstituency boundary changes andspare the party twenty lost seats. But arethey so sure that boundaries and Lordsreform are inextricably linked, given theunpredictable dynamics of the coalitiongovernment? On the other hand, ifLabour supports the bill it will only failthrough the connivance of Conservativebackbenchers, which really could destroythe coalition.

In the months ahead Labour parlia-mentarians should recall the party’s 100-year crusade to reform the second cham-ber. In 13 years Labour failed to completethe job. It should not block other partiesattempts to enact the plans it crafted.Andrew Harrop is general secretary atthe Fabian Society

Paul Tyler

Now is the time to act

Lords Reform is the promise of all partiesto the electorate. All the recent Labourand Liberal Democrat manifestos havepromised progress, and even the Conser-vatives have been committed to reformsince 2001.

The government’s proposals havebeen scruntinised at length by a JointCommittee of MPs and peers, who votedby a majority to get on with the job. Thebill balances the urgent need to end patronage and heredity as a basis for obtaining seats in parliament, while re-taining the distinctive character and roleof the House of Lords.

The relationship between the Houseswill evolve, but the essential primacy of

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The trouble with the House of Lords isthat there is no agreement about its cur-rent role let alone a future one. The stereo-typical picture of politicians past their sellby date speaking in a chamber resemblingthe television room in an old people’s carehome is actually unfair. The quality of de-bate and the qualifications of its activemembers puts the House of Commons toshame. The question that needs to beasked is: “What is the point and role of theHouse of Lords in the body politic?”

Under the influenceThis is not a new question. In perhaps thegreatest of his collaborations with ArthurSullivan in Iolanthe, W S Gilbert pennedthe immortal lines: “The House of Peersthroughout the war did nothing in partic-ular and did it very well.” His observationis just as relevant today as it was then.

For lobbyists and public affairs agen-cies, the House of Lords is fertile territory.It is much easier to change legislation,amend government policy and raise indi-vidual causes than is the case in the Houseof Commons. The reason is the lack of re-sources for most Peers. They simply donot have the office support which is nowtaken for granted by MPs. As a result theyare reliant, perhaps overly so, on outsideinterests briefing them and helping towrite their speeches as well as supplyingbackground briefing material. The poten-tial problems caused by such a lack of re-source are obvious and need to be ad-dressed. Outside interests, includingpublic affairs agencies, have too muchpower in their relationship with theHouse of Lords and individual peers.

It is when legislation has to passthrough the House of the Lords that thegovernment is at its most vulnerable. Forall the politeness and charm of debates inthe House of Lords and the surfeit of cour-tesy shown by almost everybody to eachother, the opportunity for a peer (after abriefing from an outside interest) to putdown an amendment and then persuadethe minister to make a concession in return for the amendment being with-drawn makes the House of Lords promis-ing ground for those who want to changelegislation. This is particularly true with acoalition government. It often seems thatLib Dem peers have not been told thatthey are in coalition with the Tory party.They seem to regard being whipped as an occasional irritation which is best ig-nored. This political vulnerability is often

overlooked by political commentators, butit is well understood by the best public affairs agencies.

They may be cuddly old coves who arehard of hearing and find walking difficultbut they have as much power as MPs,with the exception of matters financial.As such they surely need to have the samedegree of scrutiny over their individualrelationships with outside interests as doMPs. The simple fact is that they do not.There is the occasional scandal resulting

in some peers having to spend time at HerMajesty’s pleasure. Yet a naughty Peerdoes not seem to attract the same oppro-brium as a naughty MP. In their Lord-ships’ House a spell in Ford Open Prisonseems to be regarded in much the sameway as a temporary ban from the local golfclub for bad behaviour.

The power of wordsThere are times when the House of Lordscomes into its own. Defence is one suchissue. When Paul Drayson was Ministerfor Defence Procurement in the last gov-ernment he was regularly beaten up byformer chiefs of the general staff who inlanguage and prose worthy of Shake-speare at his greatest forced him to retreaton rather too many occasions. It is also thecase that technical bills often start theirlife in the House of Lords because of thequality and expertise of various peers.This does not excuse, however, the factthat the role of the House of Lords is unclear and the scrutiny of its members is inadequate. It needs protection from being over lobbied.

In the current debate about the regula-tion of lobbying most of the focus hasbeen on public affairs agencies, the behav-iour of former ministers and the need fortotal transparency and accountability.This is all understandable. The debateabout the future of the House of Lords isnot unrelated. Instead of politicians beingobsessed about its composition the focusshould surely be on its role. After which,everything else follows. lPeter Bingle is the former chairman of BellPottinger Public Affairs

LOBBYING

The House of Lords is vulnerable to the influence of lobbyists

Fertile territoryBy Peter Bingle

Outside interests havetoo much power in the House of Lords

12biddle:Statesman supplements 10/07/2012 11:22


From a campaigner’s point of view, thereis a peculiar paradox at the heart of the de-bate to reform the House of Lords. On anideological level, the upper chamber isproblematic because it has no mandatefrom the public, is unaccountable, and severely lacks diversity. On the otherhand, its lack of accountability enables theHouse of Lords – at least in theory – tothink independently and provide morerational scrutiny of government. This of-ten gives campaigners a vital access pointin the legislative process. Reform wouldneed to strike a balance between creatinggreater accountability but enabling a fluidand open dialogue with external voices.

Influence and favourEsther Foreman, a consultant and fellowof the Clore Social Leadership Pro-gramme, has recently researched charityand public campaigning in the House ofLords and the implications of reform. Inaddition to interviewing several peers,she surveyed 21 voluntary sector and civilsociety organisations around their relationship with the House of Lords. Herfindings show that 86 per cent of respon-dents have a working relationship withpeers, while 43 per cent say that lobbyingthe Lords is an effective way to influencethe legislative process, with only nine percent saying it is not effective.

Foreman’s research indicates thatcrossbenchers are especially important tocharitable organisations. Some 43 percent of the charities she surveyed said thatcrossbench peers are more responsivethan politically-appointed peers. Not onerespondent felt that those peers belong-

ing to a party were more responsive thanthe crossbenchers.

Political peers can and do rise aboveparty politics, opening up space for chari-ties and campaign groups to influence leg-islation. In 2008 for example, the Labourgovernment’s plans to extend terror de-tention limits to 42 days met with strongopposition from civil liberties groups andwere heavily defeated in the Lords, with36 Labour peers voting against.

However, the pressure group UnlockDemocracy suggests political peers arenot always as independent as some claim.Its analysis found party-affiliated Lordshad lower rebellion rates against the gov-ernment than MPs between 2005-2010.

Furthermore, there is a serious ques-tion about the independence of the Houseof Lords regardless of political affiliation.

For example, while peers from across thepolitical spectrum provided significantscrutiny to the Health and Social CareBill, research by the Social Investigationsbloggers claims that peers from everyparty hold private healthcare interests(one in four Conservative peers; one in sixLabour; one in 10 Liberal Democrats; onein six crossbench peers). There are nomeasures to stop Lords with conflictedinterests from voting on Bills.

The Health and Social Care bill receiveda massive amount of opposition, fromgroups including the British Medical As-sociation and the Royal College of Nurs-ing. Campaign group 38 Degrees amassedover 500,000 signatures against the Bill,presenting the first petition in the Houseof Lords since the early 1990s. Despite allof this, it has now been enacted.

Independence dayAs campaigners, we would want a re-formed upper chamber to be more open,more often, to the evidence presented bycharities and campaigning groups. This isnot out of a desire to scupper governmentplans that we might disagree with, but tofacilitate a more independent, non-politi-cised scrutiny of those plans.

Charities which seek to lobby on behalfof the individuals and communities theywork with need a body which will be ableto consistently rise above political dogmaand private interests, listen dispassion-ately to a range of external voices, andprovide fearless inquiry into the govern-ment’s legislative programme. lHarmit Kambo is policy manager at theSheila McKechnie Foundation

CIVIL SOCIETY

We need to trust that members of the Lords will putpersonal interests to one side when making decisions

A leap of faithBy Harmit Kambo

The peculiar workings of the upper chamber

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Leveson and Lords reform are matters ofgreat fascination to the chattering classesbut to what extent do they matter in theslightest to millions of struggling Britonsat a time of severe economic hardship?Well, the forces of reaction hope desper-ately that the constant drip drip of revela-tions at Leveson will create a kind of “outrage fatigue” and that the furore onthat front will die away. I suspect DavidCameron thinks that way too. He keepssaying, in a matey mildly contrite sort ofway, that we must all admit “we politi-cians” have been too cosy with journalists.

Well, nice try Dave, but that’s not theissue is it? I’m not particularly concernedabout who texts whom but I am utterlyconcerned about the concentration ofpower in the hands of the unaccountableand about the abuse of that power. If wecall ourselves progressives or democratsor liberals of any kind we should be ap-palled about monopolies in the media,about the manipulation of politicians bythose monopolies and about the nefari-ous role of the Murdochs in particular.

Time to get angryRight across this country, millions arestruggling to make ends meet because ofthe actions of the unelected, the unac-countable but unimaginably powerfulleaders of the financial sector. The“bankers”, to use the lazy short hand,who – egged on by the previous two gov-ernments – stretched our economy to thepoint of destruction in the interests ofshort-term greed. Again, the forces of re-action here would love us to get outragefatigue and just let the powerful few con-

tinue to direct our economy from the city.There is nothing esoteric about being

furious about the concentration andabuse of power in the media and in thecity. The impact of that abuse is tangiblein almost every home in the country.

If we are progressives we should be justas furious about the House of Lords.

I accept that it is hard to get as angryabout Lord Stevens of Kirkwhelpington,who at 69 is considered young for theHouse of Lords, as it is about Rupert Mur-doch or Fred Goodwin. However, with arecent Independent investigation uncov-ering a number of peers, including LordStevens, who have used the House ofLords dining rooms as a private club towine and dine business clients – despite aban on them using the facilities for com-mercial purposes – we can see this is all

part of the same problem. The unelectedand the well-connected, running a coun-try that is supposed to be a democracy.

No denying the impactThose who say we should put off reformuntil we can come up with a perfect re-placement or until there is a more suitabletime, argue this is just a distraction fromgovernment business and that it is some-thing only the Liberals care about. Yetwhen I hold surgeries for my constituentsI see people who are desperately con-cerned about the changes to their bene-fits, or about how the economy is affect-ing their job prospects. Not all that manycome to talk about Lords’ Reform, but theburdens that 95 per cent of our people arelabouring under today are the result of abroken politics that allows forceful vestedinterests to use power to which they arenot entitled to protect those interests.

Those who oppose the reforms by ar-guing over the type of electoral system touse, the size of the chamber, etc, may ormay not be well meaning, but reform willnever come if we are all purists about this.

Having half of parliament stuffed withpeople who are there because of patron-age or birthright is simply wrong. It is essentially corrupt; it’s part of a triangle ofshame – with the bankers and the mediatycoons making up the other two sides.Reactionaries will tell us there are moreimportant things to tackle at a time likethis. Again, nice try. Your time is up. Out-rage fatigue or not, the opportunity is infront of us, let’s not bottle it. lTim Farron is president of the Liberal Democrats

“God & my right”: a change in attitude is needed

THE LAST WORD

Those who argue that House of Lords reform is not an essential issue are wrong.

Broken politicsBy Tim Farron

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Size of Chamber

Population in millions

Lords aged 60+ 82%

<6018%

Male78%

Female 22%

Ethnic minorities4.8%White

95.2%

Overseas 1%

Scotland10%

Yorkshire and Humber 4.4%

East Midlands 2.4%East of England 11%11

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London 25.1%1%1%1%2225.125.1%22225.15.1

South East19.4%South

West 8.8%%8%8%8%

Wales 3.9%

West Midlands 3.7%3.7%%%3.7%

North West 5%5%5%

Northern Ireland

2.8%

North East 2.6%

Crossbenchers33.3%

Conservatives8.1%

Labour8.5%

Liberal Democrats5.5%

Total expenses claimed by peers ,

attending no votes in 2011p yp y

The tax free daily allowance Lords are entitled to if they attend a sitting

yy

MYTH BUSTER

Setting the record straightMyth no 1: The House of Lords is effective Myth no 2: It is representative of the UK

Myth no 4: The House of Lords is efficient

Myth no 5: A House that is the envy of the world

Percentage of Lords attending no divisions, 2010-11 Demographic breakdown of members

Size of second chamber by country

Myth no 3: It is regionally representativeNumber of members by region Associated costs

15stats2:Statesman supplements 10/07/2012 12:23 Page 5

Get the Job Done

Reform of the House of Lords is unfinished business for the Labour Party. We’re the party that has stood against privilege and the born-to-rule culture of entitlement that has infected our second chamber for too long. That’s why we took action in government to abolish almost all the hereditary peers and it’s why we have been at the forefront of promoting a democratic alternative. As the public’s faith and trust in our institutions continues to erode, we need to open the doors of the Lords to the voters and make politics relevant and responsive. Our organisations continue to support an upper house that is elected by the British people.

One with a fair voting system that ensures real choice for voters and results in real diversity for the country. Labour campaigned on a 100% elected Lords and although the current proposal before Parliament falls short of that, we think it’s a vast improvement on what we have now - 0% democracy. We’ve been fighting for democracy for a century. Let’s not miss the chance to make that change.

Robert Philpot Progress

Neal Lawson Compass

NS AD lords supplement.indd 1 06/07/2012 13:02:56

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