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House of Lords: Reform

My Lords, the debate has examined all the possible ramifications of the proposed reforms of the House of Lords. I would like to go over the reforms that have already taken place, and in so doing underline their value and their contribution to a very different second Chamber. The Government came to power with the promise of reforming this ancient institution to make it more legitimate, more representative and more effective. Since 1997, there have been a royal commission, two Joint Committee reports and four government White Papers on Lords reform. In 1999, three major changes occurred: all but 92 of the 759 hereditary Peers were expelled from the House, a nominations commission with a clear mandate began its work and, for the first time in history, life Peers became the majority element of the Lords’ composition. Those seemingly small changes have had a profound impact on this House. Let me briefly run through the results of those earlier reforms. Here, I rely heavily on research carried out by Dr Meg Russell of the Constitution Unit at University College, London. The reduction in the size of the House, by means of expelling 655 hereditary Peers, immediately brought the House into something like political balance. Previously, the House was dominated by the Conservatives, with 301 hereditary Conservative Peers but only 19 hereditary Labour Peers, which necessarily threatened Labour legislation. While Tory Governments had been confident when in power about getting their legislation through, new Labour could not have the same confidence. The two main parties are now more or less equally matched, with the balance of power held by the Liberal Democrats and, to some extent, the independents. The House has become more representative than was ever the case before, and possibly more representative even than the other place. Our general election system tends to inflate governing party majorities and conversely under-represent smaller parties in the House of Commons. Thus in the 1997 election, new Labour won 63 per cent of seats on 43 per cent of the vote, and in 2005 new Labour won a majority of seats on only 35 per cent of the vote. However, the figures for the Lords more fairly represent public opinion as indicated in general elections, with the independents or Cross-Benchers perhaps representing the 30 per cent of the electorate who do not vote at all. So the distribution of seats is far more proportionate in the Lords than it is in the other place. One consequence of this new balance is that the relationships of power between the two Houses have shifted significantly. However, since the present House of Lords has no mandate to interfere with legislation, it has necessarily acted judiciously. Nevertheless, the second Chamber is more confident and far more prepared to challenge proposed government legislation. One measure of that, again put forward by Dr Meg Russell, is the number of government defeats, or challenges, as someone put it, on amendments. For example, in the parliamentary Session immediately before the 1999 reforms the Government suffered39 defeats, whereas in the parliamentary Session of 2002-03 there were over 80 defeats. Those figures may well provoke any Government into reform, but at the same time they appear to demonstrate a degree of effectiveness that has not previously been experienced, a greater degree of democracy or legitimacy in the more balanced composition and more involvement in scrutiny than was previously the case. The point can be made that reforms have altered the House of Lords fundamentally in the past eight years. There have been unintended consequences, many of which have perhaps not been widely acknowledged. Further reforms will also have unintended consequences. Do the Government not wish to examine with more care what those might be? Can it not be said that further efforts to ““democratise”” the House of Lords may not, and most probably will not, weaken it but have the opposite effect? Finally, do the Government want the House of Lords to have a mandate beyond scrutiny?