Back to the 20th Century

That House of Lords reform Bill is dead. The two questions now are: Can a different Lords reform plan succeed, and, if so, what would it be? I suspect the answer to the first question is no, but let us assume for a moment that it is yes. What changes would Nick Clegg have to make?

What was extraordinary about this week’s debate was that the idea of 15-year non-renewable terms for elected senators turned out to be so unpopular. I recall thinking it quite a good idea when it was first put forward by Lord Wakeham in his Royal Commission in 1999, precisely because it would provide such a weak democratic mandate that it could not represent a threat to that of the Commons. Yet that is also what is wrong with it. What is surprising is that it has taken 13 years – almost the length of a putative senator’s term – for us to find this out.

Like a lot of constitutional reform, the 15-year terms become part of a supposed consensus because they seem to solve one problem, but then come apart when subjected to reality-based therapy. They are a stupid idea, and have to be amended.

The same goes for the form of election, proportional representation with closed party lists (that is, voters cannot express preferences between candidates of the same party on the list) in large regions. Unlike the 15-year terms, that was sprung on us late in the day, only a few weeks ago. It was a hideous idea when it was adopted (by Tony Blair and Jack Straw) for the European Parliament elections, and it is a hideous idea now. It too will have to be changed.

So how should Clegg now amend his proposals? I looked back at The Independent leading article on the Wakeham report, on 21 January 2000, which I wrote, and found this:

There is a better way to reform the Lords, one that comes from an unlikely source – the former Conservative Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay of Clashfern [pictured]. But it was he, in his inquiry, who came up with the ingenious idea of a mostly elected body that staggered its elections so that it always possessed a democratic mandate with which to challenge Government; would most likely be of an opposing political hue; but whose mandate was also older than, and inferior to, that of the Commons, so the Commons would always have “the last word”. It is not an outrageous pollution of the democratic ideal to suppose that 10 or 20 per cent of the membership could be supplemented by figures of ability and independence. They, in turn, could be appointed by an electoral college which we could all vote for.

Well, it is not my preferred model,* but if the House of Commons really wants a mostly-elected Upper House, which it said it did by 462 votes to 124 last night, although I suspect it did not mean it, Lord Mackay’s design has a better chance of winning enough support for a timetable motion.

Photograph: PA

*Since you ask, I favour an all-appointed Upper House, chosen by the political parties in proportion to votes cast nationally at the general election (in the most recent case, Conservatives 36%, Labour 29%, Liberal Democrats 23% and Others 12%).

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• FergalFury

  They will all soon swing from lamp posts Giovanni.

• Junius

  *Since you ask…

  I didn’t, as it so happens. But here, unsolicited, is my own tuppence worth. The second chamber should be all-elected on an open list system of PR, so that independents may be encouraged to stand; in the regional constituencies system employed for elections to the European Parliament; the elections to be staggered, perhaps two years after elections to the Commons, for fixed terms of five years. Fifteen is far too long.

  The birdbrained Tory rebel MPs presently preening themselves in the belief that reform of the Lords is now a dead duck would presumably have opposed the abolition of rotten boroughs, abolition of the forty shilling freehold qualification, the universal male franchise and finally votes for women, on the grounds that the present system was working OK and if it ain’t broke why fix it?

  Intriguingly, many of those birdbrained Tory rebel MPs are also against Britain’s membership of the EU, partly on the grounds that we do not elect our lawmaking Masters in Brussels. But they are quite content for Made-in-Britain legislation to be scrutinised and modified by an unelected chamber stuffed with descendants of the issue of monarchs’ extramarital squeezes, appointed political placepersons and donors to party funds, and 26 mitred area managers (Gt Britain region) whose first loyalty is to Celestial Head Office.

• Toocleverbyhalf

  ”
  What changes would Nick Clegg have to make?”

  First thing he should do is hand over to someone else. Anything he touches will now get people’s backs up that would not be got up were they proposed by someone else.

  Having watched with horror the Cleggmania that developed before the last election, despite him appearing to me to be a smarmy two-faced git (and don’t get me going on his bad points), it’s hard now not to watch with joy as everything he touches melts away in his hands. It’s the Gordon Brown effect but even more so…

• FergalFury

  Clegg is indeed odious and unelectable yet the Liberals are about the only party that still enshrine civil liberties and human rights in their policy.

• porkfright

  I have noticed that most lamp-posts have been enlarged and considerably redesigned.

• FergalFury

  Troops recalled for Olympics (or so we are told) It seems Pork that Crassus thinks the Mob will rise in a Tahrir Square moment. New Scotland Yard delanda est.

• porkfright

  An interesting development this, for one like myself who has a Phd. in total cynicism.

• FergalFury

  Did you hear about the huge demo in Mexico City? Not on the Indy you didn’t. Banned? They start to fear.

• Kugelschreiber

  What disturbs me most of all, more than whether the 2nd chamber is elected or not, is the amount of VESTED INTERESTS we see in Parliament today.

  Something should be done about THAT.

  For example, to see the Parliamentary vested interestS involved in the HEALTH BILL, just Google:

  social investigations, nhs, privatisation vested interests

  (click on the link that includes the word BLOGSPOT)

• calum_1693

  Since no-one asked, my opinion is that constitutional reform is not necessary. Instead, appoint peers by random selection from the voter’s roll once a year, to target an approximate fixed size. In addition, the government of the day would still be able to create peers in order to bring outside people into government, bring in specific outside expertise, or occasionally for the retired politicians that are worth having around.