Should the House of Lords be reformed?

When I ask the aforementioned question, I am not suggesting any implicit opposition to Lords reform. Political modernization is inevitable, as we witnessed patterns in the context of history. The Glorious Revolution affirmed that Parliament is part of the constitutional structure in England, changing the pre-Stuart ideas that the monarch alone embodies sovereignty. Similarly, the Privy Council has been replaced by the Cabinet system under the Hanoverian monarchs. By Queen Victoria's time, the Prime Minister has to command the confidence of the Commons - and no longer the monarch.

In the context of the House of Lords, it has seen its fair share of modernization throughout the ages before 1997. From being the more dominant parliamentary chamber, the Lords has effectively lost its political pre-eminence and power to the Commons. The Parliament Acts excluded the Lords from vetoing financial and supply bills, and the Salisbury Convention holds that the Lords should not veto any bill that is part of the elected Commons' manifesto.

In terms of its membership, the Lords saw the expansion of its membership from less than 50 peers under Elizabeth I to the 600 odd members it has today. With the introduction of Life Peerages Act 1958, members of the House of Lords only hold their seat for life and it is non-tranferrable to their descendents. Women and Scottish hereditary peers are allowed to claim their seats in the Lords in1963, with the passing of the Peerage Act which also allows peers to disclaim their seat and to contest for a Commons seat.

By 1997, the Lords was an unelected chamber filled with both hereditary and life peers. It remains a source for junior ministers, since major political office-holders (even the Lord Chancellor today) are usually frontbenchers in the Commons. Constitutional convention and precedent have barred any Lord from serving as Prime Minister or Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Upper Chamber.

The Labour Party was one of the two political parties in the United Kingdom to have listed the Lords reform in their manifesto for the General Election, with the other being the Liberal Democrats who called for the abolition of the Lords. Central to both parties' argument is that the Lords is an archic institution, and its hereditary as well as unelected nature is an antithesis to functioning democracy.

Therefore, it was no surprise that Blair began an extensive reform of the House of Lords in 1997, with the end result being the House of Lords Act 1999. By no means is it conclusive, and personally I do think that resulted in a mess today. I am not opposing or supporting the Lords reform; after all, I am not a Briton and it is for the British citizenry to decide on whether it is a necessary move. All I can do is to comment on the reform, and I think it was carried out as a crowd-pleaser without any substantial proposal or careful deliberation.

Take for example the role of the Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain. The Blair Ministry sought to abolish the position and replace it with a Principal Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs, without careful research that the position and its functions could not be abolished without an Act of Parliament cancelling many other Acts of Parliament.

Or, for another instance, Tony Blair's made a secret agreement with Lord Cranborne, then Leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, on allowing 99 hereditary peers to be elected to remain in the Chamber on an interim basis. This is done without consulting the William Hauge, the Leader of the Conservatives. This reflected a breach of protocol of not disucssing cross-party issues between political leaders, and showed how determined Blair was to get the Lords without sensitivity. Indeed, Hauge knew nothing about it and had to learn about the secret deal through Blair in a parliamentary sessions.

I could not comprehend why Blair allowed for the 92 herditary peers to remain if he had wanted a true reform of the Lords. Perhaps it was sheer political reality that he could not push for a complete change in the Lords' chamber, but surely the Lords reform could be done in a more organised and cautious manner?

In fact, as the years progress, the traditionally Conservative-dominated Lords was flooded by new Labour peers. In other words, the Labour party must have been dispensing a substantial number of life peerages to Labour politicians and donors to overcome the Conservative majority.

For a political party which champions for an elected chamber (as Tony Blair supported for in a parliamentary session in January 2003), it is ironic that it is injecting more and more Labour peers into the reformed chamber. More significantly, the Blair Ministry claimed to broadly support Wakeham Report's recommendation, among which includes the disassociation between peerage and membership of the Lords. It seems that in this aspect, the Blair Ministry was making a contradiction in rhetoric and practice.

The divergence in the attitude and proposal of Lords' reform could be classified according to party lines, and between the two chambers. The Conservatives would have preferred the status quo, but it did not dismiss the possibility of a partially elected second chamber. Similarly, the Liberal Democrats preferred the abolition of the Lords but set a minimal baseline that the Lords should at least be predominatly elected.

Across the two chambers, there is no sign of unity in the Lords reform as well. In a non-binding vote in 2007, he Lords preferred a 100% appointed chamber, than the 100% elected chamber which the Commons preferred.

This difficulty is added on by the question of legitimacy and role of the two chambers - if the Lords is to be electd, it has the same mandate with the Commons and perhaps is more representative in terms of cross-society membership and regional basis (as the Governmnt and Royal Commissions have envisioned for). So would the Lords settle for a more compromised role than it is stuck in the present circumstances?

Public mood, according to the Constitution Unit in the University College of London's School of Public Policy, was that:

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.

If what the Constitution Unit suggests was true, it seems that there is a confusing divide among the different stakeholders on the issue of Lords' reform. There is no universal consensus on its make up, and with its future role undefined. There is no viable alternative, and definitely it requires more in-depth deliberation.

At present, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government has yet to submit a formal paper on the issue of Lords' reform. But with Nick Clegg's popularity and political fortunes on the decline after supporting the Conservative-sponsored tuition fees hike, it is rumoured that David Cameron is keen to save his coalition partner by compromising on the Lords' reform to the Liberal Democrats.

Hopefully, Clegg's proposal will not turn out to be another populist measure as the Liberal Democrats had promised in its electoral manifesto. Clegg must be painfully aware that while in government, one must make decisions based on practicality and not on pure idealism.

If I am asked on what should the Lords do and where it should proceed, frankly I would just opt for the status quo. Ideally, I believe that what was not broken should not be fixed. The Lords had been functioning well prior to 1997, and while it is true that the Lords were unelected and seats could be passed on a hereditary basis, Britain has always been a functioning democracy via the Commons.

Despite the heavy contestation over the term, almost all definitions in the literature uphold that democracy is for the people with a representative government. The hung Parliament in the General Election 2010 shows the people's dissastisfaction with all three major political parties, and indeed the Commons is a legitimate forum invested with the people's mandate. With or without the hereditary peers, the government's operations were never threatened to the stage close to a shutdown.

Similarly, neither was Britin less democratic because of the hereditary peers. At best, the hereditary peers represent the unequal element of the society. The idea of equality in democracies is the equality of all citizens, and not equality in all aspect of life. Even without hereditary peers, there are other unequal situations in the societies such as established political families (Kennedys, Clintons, Bush, Roosevelts etc) or intergenerational wealthy families (Rockefellers, for instance). I am not defending the hereditary peers, but I am trying to put across the point that these unequal birth rights (how ironic) do not make the society less democractic than it is.

In any case, it is not practical to bring back the Lords and I vote for status quo. The Lords could continue to represent the society at large (for example, reforming the Lords Spiritual to include religious leaders beyond the Church of England) and appoint life peers based on their contributions to the society, and how could they add value to the debates.

Perhaps the only change I would do is to remove politicians from the chamber, unless they are elder statesmen who have retired from the Commons and have made outstanding contribution to the nation. The Lords should perhaps no longer divided across party lines, and be instead filled with specialist, people's and regional representatives who serve the interest of their groups, rather than political parties.

And I would probably suggest the removal of the Prime Minister and Opposition Leader's role in recommending peerages, with the Independent Commission to have be invested with the sole right to recomend to the monarch.

Is it a pity for the hereditary peers? I am not quite sure about that, since they are able to stand for political office in the Commons after the reform. And more importantly, in exchange for a loss of seat in the Lords, they are now able to vote (hereditary pers are previously barred from voting). Perhaps some hereditary peers prefer to hold a seat in the Lords than to vote, but honestly aside from privileges and prestige, being an unpaid legislator (as they were back then) is not exactly worth it. To travel to London, and to claim allowances, well, I would say is definitely not enough to survive (and maintain the large estates, if applicable).

Status Quo? Definitely. But please, with some refinements after the necessary careful thoughts.

Labels: Commentary, Comparative Politics