The Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill published its report on the government’s proposals yesterday. There weren’t really any surprises: the committee recommended an 80 percent elected/20 percent appointed House of 450 members, each of whom would serve for a non-renewable 15-year-term. The elected members would be chosen using a modified version of the single transferable vote method, while the appointed members would be chosen by a statutory Appointments Commission (though the Prime Minister would retain the ability to nominate a limited number of individuals to serve as Ministers in the House of Lords). The Church of England would continue to be represented by bishops, though their number would be reduced to 12. But I have a feeling that this particular scheme is going to go the way of all the other schemes that have been proposed since Lords reform began in 1911.
As always, the stumbling block will be the issue of the relationship between the two Houses of Parliament. Right now, the House of Lords is subordinate to the House of Commons. The Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949 allow the Commons to pass legislation without the Lords’ consent, while the Salisbury Convention states that the Lords will not reject government bills that arise from manifesto commitments.
But although the Lords can no longer fight the Commons on equal terms, they still play a valuable role as a revising chamber. Unlike in the Commons, where legislation is often nodded through without any real scrutiny, the Lords look at every clause of every bill. The Lords is traditionally a much less partisan place than the Commons, and many of its members have real-world experience beyond the Westminster village. The Lords can look at legislation from a different perspective, and their amendments often go a long way toward improving the final product (in fact, the vast majority of Lords amendments are subsequently agreed to by the Commons).
The main problem with the government’s proposals is that they assume that the reformed House of Lords will remain subordinate to the Commons. But while it makes sense for an appointed body to defer to the will of an elected body, it’s hard to see why an elected House of Lords should have to give way. After all, one could argue that it would have greater democratic legitimacy since its members would be chosen through a form of proportional representation rather than first-past-the-post. It would only be a matter of time before the two Houses came into serious conflict, and it’s difficult to see how the primacy of the Commons could survive. Legislative gridlock is all-too-common here in America, but it would throw a real monkey wrench into the British system.
The government’s proposals face a perilous journey to the statute book. I suspect that, deep down, most MPs are aware of the absurdity of one elected chamber having to kowtow to another elected chamber. There are also many Conservative MPs who would love to torpedo Lords reform in order to give Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats a symbolic middle finger. If the newspaper reports are to be believed, there are even Cabinet ministers who are quietly encouraging rebellion. Even if the bill squeaks by the Commons, it faces massive opposition in the Lords. Theoretically, the government could use the Parliament Acts to force the bill onto the statute book, but that would require them to get the bill through the Commons twice. Given how divided the Coalition is on the subject of Lords reform, I’m not sure the government would want to re-fight what’s bound to be a bruising battle.
Despite what Nick Clegg and company say now, I suspect the House of Lords will remain in its current form for many years to come.
Codex Lochianus 