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www.englandonsunday.com
May 13, 2012
The House of Lords in Perspective
By Graham Gendall Norton
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s we go to press, we await the State Opening of Parliament on Wednesday. The Queen’s Speech will set out the Government’s programme for the coming 2012-13 Session. It is generally expected that this will include proposals for “Reforming” the House of Lords. The speech will be delivered to the seated, erminetopped red-robed peers, the MPs standing. The Queen, crowned, seated, gives the Speech from the Throne. This is not a mere pageant of display. Our constitution is unwritten as a single document, but has evolved over many, many centuries to be the model for present parliamentary democracies worldwide. The State Opening symbolises this synthesis. Certainly, the most widely known written Constitution in the world is that of the United States. That document has only been very infrequently amended since it came into effect in 1789 (mostly in the immediate years following that date, including the First Amendment, in the 10 Amendments of the Bill of Rights in 1791). After, the most widely known and far ranging is perhaps the 13th, abolishing slavery in 1865 following the Civil War. There is huge respect for this historic document, with great reluctance to alter the text, “intended for ages to endure” as Chief Justice Marshall famously said in McColloch v. Maryland in 1819, “and thus to be adapted to the various crises in human affairs.” As with us in the UK, certain constitutional conventions have grown up which avoid frequent tinkering. So, is the United Kingdom in a crisis? We are, as is much
else of the developed world, as far as the economy is concerned. From that may very well develop a social crisis. What we most certainly do not face is a constitutional crisis, which was the reason, over 100 years ago for the Parliament Act of 1911. By that, the powers of an hereditary House of Lords were much curbed: it was in fact envisaged that there would be an elected House of Lords, “but not to be brought immediately into operation”. From the Reform Act of 1832, democratic pressures saw to it that, gradually, voting for the Commons was broadened until today’s universal franchise from the age of 18. The House of Lords remained completely hereditary, apart from the bishops and the Law Lords. Its power to delay Commons legislation was cut from two years to one in 1949. By a masterstroke Macmillan brought in the Life Peerages Act in 1958, and re-invigorated the House. The hereditaries remained. In 1999 a further House of Lords Act was passed, to make it largely made up of Life Peers. Quaintly perhaps, 92 hereditary peers were still to be there, a death vacancy filled by byelection in a complex manner. They are there supposedly only until further reform. As of last week, adding them in (at present 90), there are 782 members qualified to sit in the House. The greatest number (667) are Life Peers. Labour has a slight majority over the Conservatives in the party affiliations, 235 to 214, with 90 Liberal Democrats and 186 Crossbenchers without party affiliation. There are a few who are connected with smaller parties, mainly from Ulster.
The role of the Lords now is not representative, but revisory, a second sight of legislation sent up from the Commons
Add in too the 25 Church of England Bishops, including the two Archbishops. It seems proposed that they will be cut to 12. I would agree with Andrew Cary, writing in the CEN of 8 April that this would pose severe problems to diocesan duties, as they are not of course, as are many other peers, full-time attendees. (Peers do not, like MPs, receive a salary, but a per diem attendance fee of £300 for a full day’s attendance, including expenses, or £150 for part of a day.). If the Government does include Lords reform in the upcoming legislative programme, which seems most likely, it will argue that its present composition is an unelected anomaly. The Chancellor argued that his unpopular Budget corrected anomalies. But life is full of anomalies: George, where have you been all your life? The role of the Lords now is not representative, but revisory, a second sight of legislation sent up from the Commons, (sometimes rushed) scrutinised often by experts in that field. It seems likely that the government wants to call an elected Second Chamber the “Senate”. That word derives from senex, the Latin for an elder, as that body was mostly composed in Rome. Our Lords today is much of that, with many former ministers who can give from their long experience valuable amendments. Present electoral politics now demands youth from Prime Ministers (both Blair and Cameron had never before held ministerial office) and ministers. The pressure is unrelenting, added to by 24-hour media, and international summits and meetings. There is too an emphasis on the visual, in the press, TV, the internet, and passing on images via personal messaging. The Lords at present can give a longer perspective. To turn the Second Chamber into what is likely to be another stepping stone for the political class will add to the mounting disillusion with them.