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Sunday 6 July 2008

Their Lordships’ duty

The Spectator on how the House of Lords can influence the Lisbon Treaty debate

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One of the fundamental traditions governing the relations between the Commons and the Lords is the so-called Salisbury Convention, which holds that the upper house will not reject a manifesto Bill at second reading, nor introduce a wrecking amendment to such Bills. The convention reflects two core principles, elucidated by two separate Salisburys.

The first, spelt out by the Victorian Salisbury, was the doctrine of the mandate. The view of the nation and the views of the Commons were not invariably identical. In Liverpool in 1882, he declared: ‘The House of Lords may possibly say, “No, this was not the ground on which this last election was conducted; we will not allow this thing to be done until the nation has been allowed to speak”. In so acting, I hold that the House of Lords will perform its true duty as a second chamber, its highest function as the last representative of the people in this country.’

The second principle was developed by his grandson, the fifth Marquess of Salisbury, after the second world war. Confronted with a Commons dominated by Labour, the Tory upper house accepted it should not frustrate measures that MPs had been elected to enact. That said, the Lords had to be more than an echo chamber. ‘It is clearly essential,’ Salisbury said in 1948, ‘that some machinery should exist which can enable great issues, on which the views of the people are not certainly known, to be adequately considered, and if necessary, referred back to the electors for their considered decision.’ In 1949, during the debate on the Iron and Steel Bill, he put the argument even more pithily: ‘I have always believed it is the function of your Lordships’ House not so much to interpret the will of the people as to give the people an opportunity of expressing their own views.’

In the case of the Lisbon treaty, the Lords finds itself in a deeply ironic position with regard to the Salisbury Convention, as Charles Moore points out on page 11. Traditionally, the convention has been invoked to constrain the Lords’ inclination to obstruct manifesto commitments that MPs have already approved. In this instance, however, the upper house has a quite different, and possibly unprecedented, duty.

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