By Marjorie Smith
Gordon Brown's conference pledge to finally abolish the remaining hereditary peers from the Lords should be one of the final nails in the coffin of hereditary privilege in the UK (save for the ultimate target, the monarchy).
Successive Labour Governments have 'talked the talk' over House of Lords Reform, yet very few have delivered. Besides the concerns over a competing chamber with democratic legitimacy and a democratic mandate to fall back on, the other main objection is the supposed loss of the experience and expertise of the current members of the House of Lords.
The Blair administration's reforms of the second chamber went some way to giving a veneer of respectability with many of the hereditary peers no longer able to vote, although there still remains the general anachronism that 100 hereditary peers can still vote down or amend UK legislation agreed by the directly elected House of Commons.
The one hundred hereditary peers are at present a self-serving cabal in that they are elected by the rump of hereditary that was defenestrated in the last reform. There are two simple words why the system of keeping any hereditary peers in the House of Lords is indefensible is Mark Thatcher or for Labour voters is the grotesque outcome that Clement Atlee's grandson is now a Tory peer.
Whilst a few of the hereditary peers work hard and contribute to the workings of the House of Lords, it is impossible to justify their continued membership of the second chamber in a democratic system, they should however, be allowed to stand for election to the second chamber, they are currently a historical anachronism that should be unacceptable in a modern democratic society. The same argument for throwing out the hereditary peers is not as clear-cut for life peers.
A simple changeover of life peers by democratically elected replacements would risk certain aspects of the House of Lords that are well worth retaining. The one core principle should be that those voting on legislation must be democratically elected. However, there is no reason why life peers cannot continue to give service as members of the House of Lords select committees. Many life peers are highly qualified and retain high quality legal, administrative or political expertise.
Many of the House of Lords Select Committee reports are very well thought of and authoritative with a specialised but highly influential audience. For example the reports produced by the various House of Lords Select Committees on the EU are very influential and help to frame debate in the European Commission and in the European Parliament.
Another benefit of the current life peers is the expertise they can bring to bear when scrutinising Government. One of the most beneficial roles that a second chamber can deliver in a democratic society is to offer alternative scrutiny of Government. We shouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The proposed reform also presents the opportunity to immediately adopt proportional representation (without the need for a constitutional referendum) as a further way of democratising the second chamber. The balance to be struck is to retain the House of Commons as the primary chamber even if the second chamber achieves democratic legitimacy.
Gordon Brown should adopt a timetable of elections that differs from the general election for a House of Commons so as to build in an element of extra democratic accountability. National elections for a second chamber should take place between eighteen months and twenty four months after a general election.
In addition, the PR system for the second chamber should be based on regional lists with voters having the choice between parties and individuals on the list, rather than the appalling D'Hondt system. Jack Straw's choice of the D'Hondt system for European Parliament elections was the worst choice of all PR systems, with voters only able to vote for pre-selected lists for an individual party. It centralised power in party HQ and completely undermined regional and local constituencies.
The only other alternative is to have individual constituencies (similar in size to the old European Parliament constituencies), and use the Alternative Vote system, which would be more proportional than first-past-the-post and would have the extra benefit of making it highly unlikely that the BNP would have any electoral success under this system.
Regional lists for the second chamber have a dual benefit, not only being based on PR and anchoring democratic legitimacy in the nine regions of England as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But also the regional members should also have a dual responsibility of, in each region in England, being members of a Regional Assembly responsible for all regional bodies and quangos in their area.
It is a damming indictment of democratic accountability that there are countless agencies and quangos in the regions (e.g. Regional Development Agencies) and sub-regions (e.g. Merseyside or Greater Manchester) that have strategic powers and responsibilities, yet have no regional accountability or scrutiny. Thus members of the second chamber would have the direct responsibility of legislative power in the second chamber and of scrutiny in their region. Of course, with differing models of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, variable structures should be designed.
To ensure the primacy of the House of Commons, with its legitimacy dependent on general elections, the basic inter-relationship between both chambers should apply, i.e. anything forming part of a party's manifesto cannot be overturned or blocked by the second chamber. In other words the Parliament Act would still apply.
One final benefit of pledging to finally finish the reform of the House of Lords is that it places the Tories in an invidious position, they can either oppose it and be denounced as the defenders of privilege or agree to reform and risk civil war breaking out in their party, especially if the commitment by Labour is to make Parliamentary sovereignty deriving solely from the people and not from the Queen in Parliament.
Gordon Brown's conference pledge to finally abolish the remaining hereditary peers from the Lords should be one of the final nails in the coffin of hereditary privilege in the UK (save for the ultimate target, the monarchy).
Successive Labour Governments have 'talked the talk' over House of Lords Reform, yet very few have delivered. Besides the concerns over a competing chamber with democratic legitimacy and a democratic mandate to fall back on, the other main objection is the supposed loss of the experience and expertise of the current members of the House of Lords.
The Blair administration's reforms of the second chamber went some way to giving a veneer of respectability with many of the hereditary peers no longer able to vote, although there still remains the general anachronism that 100 hereditary peers can still vote down or amend UK legislation agreed by the directly elected House of Commons.
The one hundred hereditary peers are at present a self-serving cabal in that they are elected by the rump of hereditary that was defenestrated in the last reform. There are two simple words why the system of keeping any hereditary peers in the House of Lords is indefensible is Mark Thatcher or for Labour voters is the grotesque outcome that Clement Atlee's grandson is now a Tory peer.
Whilst a few of the hereditary peers work hard and contribute to the workings of the House of Lords, it is impossible to justify their continued membership of the second chamber in a democratic system, they should however, be allowed to stand for election to the second chamber, they are currently a historical anachronism that should be unacceptable in a modern democratic society. The same argument for throwing out the hereditary peers is not as clear-cut for life peers.
A simple changeover of life peers by democratically elected replacements would risk certain aspects of the House of Lords that are well worth retaining. The one core principle should be that those voting on legislation must be democratically elected. However, there is no reason why life peers cannot continue to give service as members of the House of Lords select committees. Many life peers are highly qualified and retain high quality legal, administrative or political expertise.
Many of the House of Lords Select Committee reports are very well thought of and authoritative with a specialised but highly influential audience. For example the reports produced by the various House of Lords Select Committees on the EU are very influential and help to frame debate in the European Commission and in the European Parliament.
Another benefit of the current life peers is the expertise they can bring to bear when scrutinising Government. One of the most beneficial roles that a second chamber can deliver in a democratic society is to offer alternative scrutiny of Government. We shouldn't be throwing the baby out with the bath water.
The proposed reform also presents the opportunity to immediately adopt proportional representation (without the need for a constitutional referendum) as a further way of democratising the second chamber. The balance to be struck is to retain the House of Commons as the primary chamber even if the second chamber achieves democratic legitimacy.
Gordon Brown should adopt a timetable of elections that differs from the general election for a House of Commons so as to build in an element of extra democratic accountability. National elections for a second chamber should take place between eighteen months and twenty four months after a general election.
In addition, the PR system for the second chamber should be based on regional lists with voters having the choice between parties and individuals on the list, rather than the appalling D'Hondt system. Jack Straw's choice of the D'Hondt system for European Parliament elections was the worst choice of all PR systems, with voters only able to vote for pre-selected lists for an individual party. It centralised power in party HQ and completely undermined regional and local constituencies.
The only other alternative is to have individual constituencies (similar in size to the old European Parliament constituencies), and use the Alternative Vote system, which would be more proportional than first-past-the-post and would have the extra benefit of making it highly unlikely that the BNP would have any electoral success under this system.
Regional lists for the second chamber have a dual benefit, not only being based on PR and anchoring democratic legitimacy in the nine regions of England as well as Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. But also the regional members should also have a dual responsibility of, in each region in England, being members of a Regional Assembly responsible for all regional bodies and quangos in their area.
It is a damming indictment of democratic accountability that there are countless agencies and quangos in the regions (e.g. Regional Development Agencies) and sub-regions (e.g. Merseyside or Greater Manchester) that have strategic powers and responsibilities, yet have no regional accountability or scrutiny. Thus members of the second chamber would have the direct responsibility of legislative power in the second chamber and of scrutiny in their region. Of course, with differing models of devolution in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, variable structures should be designed.
To ensure the primacy of the House of Commons, with its legitimacy dependent on general elections, the basic inter-relationship between both chambers should apply, i.e. anything forming part of a party's manifesto cannot be overturned or blocked by the second chamber. In other words the Parliament Act would still apply.
One final benefit of pledging to finally finish the reform of the House of Lords is that it places the Tories in an invidious position, they can either oppose it and be denounced as the defenders of privilege or agree to reform and risk civil war breaking out in their party, especially if the commitment by Labour is to make Parliamentary sovereignty deriving solely from the people and not from the Queen in Parliament.
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