Time to abolish the House of Lords?

The House of Lords as we know it today has been an established aspect of the UK’s Parliamentary system since the beginning of the 19th century. However, it is disputable as to whether the Lords are necessarily important in today’s society. Perhaps the House of Lords adds a crucial level of variation through the idea of appointed and not elected individuals. It also may introduce a more diverse range of people into Parliament through life peers that can be appointed into the Lords. This could add legitimacy to the law-making process.

One of the most defining aspects of the House of Lords is that it is an unelected body. Instead, peers can be appointed in the form of a hereditary, spiritual or life peer, although the House of Lords Act of 1999 reduced the number of hereditary peers to approximately 92. So, it could be argued that the Lords can be useful in the legislative process, as party discipline is weaker between unelected peers, and the removal of the majority of peers who attended the House of Lords because of an inherited title increases legitimacy. Furthermore, the House of Lords has recently been proven to be effective in the legislative process, as seen in December 2020 when Lords forced the Government to review the Internal Markets Bill.

The Salisbury Convention prevents the House of Lords from opposing a bill that blocks the current government’s manifesto, despite any protests by peers. This was evident in 2021 when the House of Lords’ Covid-19 committee made 24 recommendations to government policies. However, the Government didn’t even acknowledge 8 of these recommendations and minimal legislative change was made.

So, the Lord’s current ability to effectively apply pressure against the Government can be debated.

Moreover, it is clear that the House of Commons has power over the Lord’s ability to pass legislation. The Parliaments Acts of 1911 and 1949 prevent peers from vetoing public bills, or rejecting public bills and mean that legislation can only be delayed by a maximum of one year by the Lords before it is passed. The Common’s legal superiority over the Lords was seen when all defeats by the Lords on both the EU Withdrawal Bill and the Article 50 Bill were overturned by the Commons.

A significant role of both Parliamentary chambers is to scrutinise the Government effectively, through examining the inner workings of government departments and the policy developed by government ministers. This is achieved through a system of select committees in the Lords that are set up to examine issues. These committees do not mirror those of the House of Commons, but the Lords’ committees are allowed more time to examine issues than the Commons and tend to scrutinise in a more detailed and effective manner due to the lack of party loyalty in the Lords. Recently, the Lords has seen successes in effective government scrutiny. For example, the Delegated Powers and Regulatory Reform Committee reports on whether bills proposed by government ministers have the aim of delegating too much legislative power to the Government, which limits how they are scrutinised in the future. In 2022, the Seafarers’ Wages Bill was proposed to ensure that seafarers that had close ties to the UK were paid at least an equivalent of the UK minimum wage whilst in UK waters. The committee recommended 2 sub sections were reformed as they granted excessive powers to the Secretary of State. In response, the government agreed to one of these recommendations.

Whilst the Lords’ committees could provide an important role in providing variation to the type of scrutiny the Executive faces, the Lords’ efforts are arguably less significant to the system of scrutiny as a whole when compared to the extensive methods employed by the Commons.

This is because the Lord’s system of scrutiny lacks Prime Minister Questions (PMQs)these are used by the Commons to directly scrutinise the PM, such as when in July 2022 Conservative backbencher Gary Sambrook called Boris Johnsons’ handling of the Chris Pincher groping case “insulting”. Furthermore, since 2010, backbenchers in the Commons have been elected chairs to these departmental select committees, meaning that commonly overlooked MPs gain expertise in specific areas. Finally, a Liaison Committee - This is composed of select committee chairs and works to scrutinise the Government. For instance, in May 2020, the first Liaison Committee meeting with Johnson as Prime Minister commenced. During this session, they questioned him on the government’s handling of the COVID-19 Pandemic and his controversial aide Dominic Cummings.

Under a representative democracy, it is imperative that the members of both chambers of Parliament reflect the country, as their titular role is to make policy decisions on behalf of and in the best interests of the people.

From first glance, the House of Lords can be assumed to lack representation, as peers are appointed instead of being elected by the people to assume power. However, the Lords being an unelected body could be used to their advantage to provide representation. Since peers do not have any ties to a specific political agenda, or to the fulfilment of the wishes of their constituents, they may be more willing to represent wider groups of people. Peers represent many areas outside of politics, such as businesses, the arts, sports and science, for example, Lord Walton who was a former president of the British Medical Association (BMA).

A concern is that the Lords lack democratic representation, as Lords are unable to represent their constituents in the way that MPs in the Commons can. For example, in 2021 Hull West MP Emma Hardy quit her esteemed frontbencher position in the House of Commons to focus on raising awareness for Hull’s struggles due to COVID. Additionally, the Lords currently lack sufficient descriptive representation. For example, as of December 2022, approximately 29% of the members of the Lords are women, a lesser figure than the 35% of MPs in the Commons that are women.

Fundamentally, the House of Lords has had recent success in scrutinising the Executive, representing the public and passing and criticising legislation. It works alongside the House of Commons to form the Parliamentary system that attempts to maintain a fair democracy. However, whether the work of peers is necessary and still needed when the House of Commons is regularly regarded as superior to the House of Lords is up for debate.