Thoughts On The House Of Lords

[andrewducker]

First - some context! There's ongoing discussion about the British House
Of Lords* (which really ought to have its name changed, but for the
purposes of this post I'm going to refer to it that way) and how it ought
to be reformed. So I've been thinking about that while bored on the bus

I like that members of the House Of Lords cannot be leant on, and do not
have to worry about re-election. It allows them to function as impartially
as possible. I also like the idea that they get more and more expertise as
time goes on, and we don't have worry about losing that expertise after a
few years because they're pushed out of office.

What I'd like to see is a more proportional makeup of the House of Lords.
But I'm not convinced that direct election is the way to go for that. Nor
am I convinced that popularity is the correct way forward - if we're not
going to be re-electing them every few years then we're talking about a
very small number being elected each time (possibly one), and I can't see
that working well.

So, what I'd like to see for the House of Lords is this:

Membership
For life (with the possibility of removal in the case of senility or some
criminal acts). I think we can trust most people to retire when they reach
the point they aren't functioning well any more.

Election
If the number of members of the House of Lords is less than the number of
members of the House of Commons, then the party (which has at least one MP)
whose proportion of Lords is the furthest below the proportion** of their
share of the vote at the last national election will name a new member.

This would mean that the membership will vary slowly in line with the
proportions of recent elections, and stay generally in line with the
general public. At the moment we have a ridiculously high number of people
in the House of Lords(789 vs 650 MPs)***, so we may need either a purge
down to the same number as the House Of Commons to start with, or an
interim period where we replace 1 in every 2, to move things in the right
direction until they achieve parity.


So, having come up with this on the bus into work this morning, I'm sure
it's full of holes - someone care to point them out to me?

*The second chamber in the UK. It can revise and reject laws proposed by
the first chamber - the House Of Commons. It used to be made up of
hereditary peers, but nowadays is mostly made up of people appointed by
whichever party is in power.
**i.e. calculate for each party "Percentage of vote - (Party Lords/Total
Lords)" - the one that with the highest number gets to name the new member.
***Because having control of the Lords is handy, and there's no theoretical
limit to the membership, parties like stacking it full of their own
members.

Comments

[pseudomonas]

Membership doesn't have to be for life - it could be for a single term. I've seen single fifteen-year term suggested, with one-third replaced every five years.

I quite like your system though - but I wonder whether like the Supreme Court in the US, there might an incentive to hang on past the point you're doing any good until after a (Commons) Election, when your replacement might be from your party.

[pseudomonas]

Your system works a bit like the AMS, doesn't it? I wonder if the number used could be for total parliamentarians rather than just lords, so it makes the whole system more proportional.

I still don't like closed lists, but I mind a lot less in the Lords than in the Commons.

[andrewducker]

Hanging on is trickier when there are 500 of you. Less of a chance of any one person making a massive difference.

[andrewducker]

I think the main objection will be from people who prefer direct democracy, and dislike party lists.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

You think right - closed lists tend to lead to people who can't get elected on a popular vote getting in anyway, which I dislike intensely.
I also don't like the idea of people being in for life - it removes any kind of accountability from the office.
But also there's the question of using results from a non-proportional election to then determine proportions in another chamber. I could imagine, for example, voting for (say) Diane Abbot in a Labour/BNP marginal. And I would be happy for that vote to lead to Diane Abbot representing me in parliament. I would *NOT* be happy for that vote to also contribute to the 'election' of Lord Blunkett or Lord Straw because they happen to be in the same party.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I like the lords being lots of respected professionals, like lawyers and scientists and even religious leaders. I think with your system we might just get politicians chosing more politicians and that seems a bit sad to me.

Also, I think it would be far too slow, and possibly suffer from the Midwife Effect where everyone is a similar age and then all retire at the same time. But we'd need some actual data on the age profile of the current House of Lords to know if that's a real point.

[andrewducker]

They're all currently appointed by politicians, so I'm not sure why it would get worse because it wouldn't just be the politicians in power appointing them.

[matgb]

I like the lords being lots of respected professionals, like lawyers and scientists and even religious leaders. I think with your system we might just get politicians chosing more politicians and that seems a bit sad to me

I agree with the former, but not the latter, most of the respected professionals in there currently were appointed by politicians.

You could have, say, a crossbench element that "represents" non voters and appoints professionals and non partisan types in some way, with proportionate numbers equal to non voters (which would in and of itself be controversial because the non-voting %age is impossible to accurately gauge, grandma dies, someone moves, someone is registered, legitimately, at two addresses, etc).

FWIW, one of the more impressive political party line appointees of this Parliament is Baroness Benjamin, she did a lot behind the scense on the forestry selloff and similar from what I've heard.

(nb, not actually agreeing with Andrew's proposal, but thining it through, I've always favoured Sortition myself)

[thakil.livejournal.com]

I just don't like the idea of a seat for life. A 10 year cylce seems healthy to me, with half removed each 5 years (to prevent the lords from being dramatically different to the make up of the commons). I'm not entirely sure of the selection process. Any proportional process is really very party controlled, but I don't see STV being sensible for the Lords. Perhaps it would be, and I'm just disliking it because of not being used to it. The Americans do fine with two types of representatives after all.

[andrewducker]

Ten years strikes me as just enough time to get your head around the UK's legal system. Forcibly retiring someone from a management/executive position at a company would be considered insane, and I feel much the same way about the second chamber.

[skington.livejournal.com]

Actually, the Americans do currently really badly with two types of representative. One of the main problems with US politics (apart from the fact that the Republican party is almost entirely insane) is that there are far too many veto points.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

One of the best features of the current system is the reasonably large group of non-party-aligned "crossbench" peers. These are people who have attained some level of eminence and expertise outside the political arena, and who have been drafted in solely to add their knowledge and experience to the legislative process.

I think I mostly agree with your proposal, but I'd want a mechanism for appointing (in a suitably objective, transparent, and apolitical fashion, like the Appointments Commission does at present) a decent proportion (at least a third, ideally half) of this sort of person. Having those people stand for election, or expecting the political parties to do the right thing and make sure they continue nominating them, is unlikely to work in general: why would you nominate a possibly off-message expert (who probably isn't even a member of your or anyone else's party) when you could slide in a suitably-primed crony who's sympathetic to your current agenda?

[andrewducker]

Those crossbench peers are currently appointed politically, aren't they? I'm not sure that allowing different MPs to appoint them would make a massive difference to the numbers of crossbenchers.

I could be wrong though.

[sigmonster.livejournal.com]

The obvious objection is the same as closed lists for PR elections, that every new member will be hand chosen by the party leadership!

If the House of Lords really is supplying useful things not done by the Commons, then they should be being done by the Commons anyway. I'd go for a much larger HoC, so large as to be much harder to manage and have many more independents and eccentrics, along with significant effort to recruit MPs from the whole of society. Straight out abolish the second chamber. Should have been abolished in 1911...

Oh, and make sure all legislation spends longer in committee, and committees have power to call independent experts and have appropriately skilled staff. This is actually happening - the last government bought in (just before it died) elected committee chairs and several other reforms of the way business passes through the House, and committee work does appear to have improved significantly.

[makyo.livejournal.com]

The committee stage is where a lot of the real, sensible stuff happens with regard to formulation of new legislation - god knows it doesn't happen in the Commons, which is seeming more and more to be a kind of public school debating society these days. By contrast, select committee meetings (and the majority of Lords debates for that matter) comprise level-headed, calm discussion by people who (for the most part) know what they're talking about.

But part of the problem with the committee stage is that the committee are free to disregard or cherry-pick the evidence given to it by the various experts they call. On occasion one gets the distinct impression that the whole thing has been a complete set-up, formed with the intention of finding evidence to support a particular policy.

One advantage of the Lords (and especially the presence of the non-party-aligned, independent crossbench peers) is that they have the power to say "no, that won't work because of this, this and this, so go back and do it again", and to keep saying it almost indefinitely (the Parliament Act, which has only been used about half a dozen times in the century since it got onto the statute books, provides a mechanism for breaking excessive deadlocks, but it's very much a last resort). In practice, roughly half of the Lords' amendments are subsequently accepted by the Commons.

So I'm not a unicameral sort of chap, really - I just don't believe that the Commons can be trusted to do things properly (by which I mean ensuring that the legislation is suitably evidence-based, and takes account of longer-term considerations, etc) on their own.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

I'm unsure why it shouldn't be made up of the first born male landowners of the largest estates in each district.

[drplokta]

You missed one. Lords are not eligible to be appointed to public office of any kind by the government of the day. This prevents the government from getting the Lords in line by offering to make or withhold appointments. They can retain any offices which they already hold.

[andrewducker]

Ooh, thanks. I hadn't actually known that!

[drdoug.livejournal.com]

It can revise and reject laws proposed by the first chamber

It can also initiate legislation, and does so. Generally not the controversial high profile stuff, but that's only by custom and expedience. Bills initiated in the Lords are then revised and/or rejected by the Commons before coming back.

members of the House Of Lords cannot be leant on

What, really? If they have a seat for life they can't be threatened with expulsion from the party and thereby the Lords, but there's plenty of influence wielded by the Whips nonetheless. There's ministerial office, of course, but there are other ways that party leaders can influence people when they really put their minds to it.

Lords reform would seem to be a very low priority for the Government at the moment. Especially given the main story around the AV vote. If it happens at all it is not going to happen in ways that AV-voting people would like.

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

What if it was just made up of the various people who have been knighted by the queen?

Bono, Bob Geldof, Tom Jones, George Martin, Paul McCartney, Cliff Richard, Elton John and Mick Jager would probably have some interesting things to say about legislation?

Tell me you wouldn't want to read about a debate in the house of lords about Council Tax between Bono and Tom Jones?

[makyo.livejournal.com]

What if it was just made up of the various people who have been knighted by the queen?
Far too many of them, for a start, although now that you mention it, I'm keen to hear Sir Patrick Stewart announcing "Make it so" rather than the usual "La Reyne Veult" when bills are given Royal Assent.

[tobyaw]

I like the idea of membership being for life. It shows that we value age and experience, and some of the current members make a contribution far beyond regular retirement age. I'd go further, and suggest a minimum age (perhaps 55 or 60), so that members of the Lords are likely to have their economically productive years behind them, and they can concentrate on applying their experience and wisdom to scrutinising legislation.

I value crossbenchers, and we must have a mechanism for bringing non-politically-aligned expertise into parliament.

I would agree with your idea as one way to create new members, but would like a second mechanism to run in parallel, allowing those at the end of their professional careers to dedicate the rest of their lives to public service, perhaps through an open application process, or through public nomination and recommendation.

[cairmen.livejournal.com]

Problem with representation according to party lines - you might get similar situations to the US Supreme Court where people hang on, refusing to quit, until a government they like comes around.

[andrewducker]

Tricker (and less important) when there's 600 of you. No individual is likely to be a tie-breaker.

Also, the percentage of voters to sway in a particular direction is less than the current party changes.

[nwhyte]

I'm in agreement with those who point out the desirability of a substantial element of the chamber nominated by a non-partisan commission, as at present. And if you get rid of the hereditary peers and bishops, you're down to 676 immediately.

Apart from that I quite like your numerical balancing, but bear in mind that only 19 Lords died last year, so it would take quite a while to get down to 650 (or 600). Also your equation would massively favour the Lib Dems for the first ten years of any new nominating cycle... (Bear in mind that only 19 Lords died last year, and those who do snuff it are usually in the gap between the official 789 and the full 830.)

[andrewducker]

By "favour" I assume you mean "reduce the existing imbalance against"? :->

I still don't understand how the non-partisan commission works when the coalition just stuffed a bunch of partisan people in there. Can you explain?

[danieldwilliam.livejournal.com]

I think the first question we need to ask on Lords reform is whether we need a second chamber at all. Put another way, what is the second chamber for?

I think a second chamber is useful for

1) A check on the Commons. This is particularly important given the flawed electoral system used to elect the Commons. I don’t buy the whole sovereignty of the people aspect about checking the Commons. Firstly, that is not a doctrine of English constitutional law and the only part of the UK where that doctrine is explicitly espoused is Scotland through the Declaration of Arbroath. Secondly, First Past the Post does not reflect the will of the people unless by People you mean the 1.6% of the electoral who live in swing seats of the members of the Home Counties Conservative Associations.
2) Expertise and the Long View which allows more considered scrutiny of legislation. There is an argument that Scotland can manage without a second chamber but I have heard it argued that the UK at 10 times larger than Scotland is much more complex and needs more scrutiny.
3) Stability. I think a flaw of our current system (partly driven by the electoral system is that) policy can swing about. I’d like to see a body able to say “Hang on, we discussed this ten years ago. What’s changed to make us change our mind?”
4) A check on the Government. Again, given the tendency of the current electoral system to return majority governments on a narrow vote share I would like to see a more effective check on the Government. If only a body that can say “Are you sure? Really?”

The House of Lords can do these job well.

I would like the selection process to dove tail with these purposes.

I think it has to be democratic. This means giving power to the people and not to existing politicians and as little as possible to Party managers and whips.

I favour direct election for the majority of the positions. I do think it important that members come from several different routes and be different in mandate from each other. To make a difference between the Commons and the Lords.

I would hold national elections using STV for persons nominated by a small but significant percentage of the population. I have some other suggestions but I might save up my full system for a separate post. If a selection panel were used I would have STV elections to that. I would include some appointed Lords and / or some ex officio (say former mayors of the ten largest cities in the UK and former first ministers and former cabinet ministers upon retirement). I like the idea of appointments in part being driven by balancing party influence.

I would bar any “Lord” from standing for any elected office within 5 years of ceasing to be a Lord. I think this prevents careerist politicians using it as a stepping stone. It should be the highest and ultimate status office in the land. Not sure about an age restriction. Not sure it’s legal, not sure I think it is necessary. Not agin the idea, just not sure.

I think terms should be long. Perhaps for life, certainly for 15 years. I would require a right of recall on a petition.

The place needs to be different from the Commons. Partly this will be achieved by things like the election / selection process and the terms of office. Not sure what the best way to achieve this is. I am a big fan of Aristotle’s view that the best constitution has a mixture of government of the one, of the few and the many.

It definitely needs to be freer from control of individual voting patterns than the Commons is. Not just government control but also control by the whips.

[crm.livejournal.com]

I was wholey in favour of the Lord's - its a functional tradition, and during several recent occasion it delayed some really fucking stupid laws from getting through, its telling when a bunch of semi-hereditary inbred aristocrats play the sensible voice to an elected government.

unfortunatly An Seanad Éireann are a rubbish second house by comparison.

[mair_in_grenderich]

I absolutely would not trust people to retire when they're going senile, and propose a retirement age.