Labour’s plans for Lords reform, announced during the King’s Speech this morning, do not come as a great surprise. It promised measures to ‘modernise the constitution’ and ‘remove the right of hereditary peers’ to sit and vote in the Lords via a House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. These plans were heralded in the Labour party manifesto, which pledged ‘immediate reform of the House of Lords’. They are, nonetheless, both unambitious and in some respects unwise.
These changes will not bring Labour much credit
The reforms proposed in the manifesto included the removal of the remaining 92 hereditary peers; the introduction of a compulsory retirement age; a revised participation requirement and new powers to remove ‘disgraced Members’. These all sound perfectly reasonable in isolation. It appears that the only measure which will require legislation now is the removal of the hereditaries. The precise details of the other measures were not mentioned in the King’s Speech, although ‘wider reform’ is still promised.
The Labour party is currently the third largest grouping in the House of Lords and may quite reasonably feel that, without some change, it will struggle to get all of its contentious legislation through the Upper House in good time. However, considering the party’s 181 member working majority in the House of Commons, the proposed reforms have the feel of unnecessarily partisan measures. What might have seemed necessary when Labour was unsure it would obtain a Commons majority now feels slightly like overkill and risks provoking a row.
This sense is exacerbated by the fact that Labour has also promised to consult on replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber, ‘more representative of the regions and nations’ of the UK. If it wishes to pursue radical reform, what is the urgency in tinkering around the edges?
There are, already, significant restrictions on the powers of the Lords. It is a revising Chamber and cannot block government legislation indefinitely, due to the Parliament Acts. Other limits on the powers of the Upper House include the Salisbury-Addison Convention (which provides that the Lords will not block Bills which were in the government’s manifesto) and Commons primacy over legislation with financial implications (which means that the Commons can pass what are described as ‘money bills’ without the consent of the Lords).
The fact that the previous Conservative government was able to get highly controversial laws relating to Brexit and the Rwanda scheme through the House of Lords unscathed shows that, where a government utilises strong party management in the Commons, it does not need to fear Lords obstructionism.
Taking some of the government’s proposed measures individually, the removal of the remaining hereditary peers is not particularly concerning in and of itself. However, Labour has done little to explain why it has not simply adopted the scheme set out by Lord Grocott to end the by-elections through which departing hereditary peers are replaced. This would lead to the gradual disappearance of the hereditary element without the instant wholesale ejection of some useful and experienced Peers (for example, the current convenor of the cross-bench Peers, Lord Kinnoull, is a hereditary member).
It is not hard to envisage that Labour’s move will be seen as a political rebalancing exercise to evict conservative minded hereditaries who might seek to obstruct Labour’s legislative programme. It also seems strange when 26 Bishops will remain in place.
A compulsory retirement age, requiring members to retire at the end of the parliament in which they reach 80 years old, has already been criticised as arbitrary and ageist, even by Labour’s own Peers. An example of this is that retired judges only start sitting from 75, once they are no longer on the bench. These members, include several former presidents of the Supreme Court and Lord Chief Justices. They add much wisdom in debates and sitting on select committees, but could now be removed after a single Parliament.
The removal of older Peers may aid in reducing the overall size of the House of Lords, but it is likely to do little to add to the quality of membership. There may also be an increasing risk that political parties will select ever younger candidates for peerages, without real life experience. Arguably, the use of 10 or 15 year term limits might be a better option.
The proposed changes raise real concerns about the quality of scrutiny in Parliament. As I have argued previously, the size of Labour’s majority in the Commons is bound to have an impact on the scrutiny which occurs in that House. The Conservative official opposition has only 121 MPs, from which they will have to find frontbenchers to shadow more than 20 government departments, as well as chairs and members of select committees. It is hard to imagine that scrutiny of government policy and legislation will improve in these circumstances. It is therefore important to ensure that the Lords remains a body capable of holding the government to account. Expelling large numbers of experienced members does not seem the ideal way of achieving this goal.
Whatever the Labour manifesto may say, few will believe that if they achieve all these changes the government will then expend significant political capital in seeking to abolish and replace the House of Lords in its first term. Whatever changes are made now may well be in place for the long term.
Labour would have garnered more credit had it pursued steps which would more effectively enhance the legitimacy of the House of Lords, without encroaching on the positive contribution that it currently makes in holding the government to account.
A few simple modernising measures, such as adopting the Grocott scheme; introducing fixed term limits for new Peers; removing the majority of the bishops and allowing the House of Lords Appointments Commission to ensure that unsuitable candidates (for example those who are subject to disciplinary investigation in the House of Commons, at work, or elsewhere) cannot be forced through as political appointees, would have led to significant improvements without too much disagreement.
Ideally, constitutional reform of this type should be achieved by consensus. While we should be grateful that Sir Keir Starmer has not immediately pursued some of the more revolutionary ideas on Lords reform proposed by Gordon Brown, these changes will not bring Labour much credit, and feel like a missed opportunity to create a more effective second Chamber.
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