The House of Lords reforms which Labour pledged in their manifesto have started to be tabled to the Commons, with MPs already voting on removing the remaining 92 hereditary peers, with the last reduction of this essence also being completed by Labour in their previous administration. The idea is to create a Lords which is more representee of the regions and nations, with Labour deeming that hereditary peers do not achieve this. The details of the overall plan as to who will replace these peers is uncertain. What is not uncertain is if you vote Labour, you get Lords reform. It would seem every time there is a Labour Government the Lords become that much more reduced, with Labour taking the ‘slowly but surely’ approach to fully reforming, or abolishing, the upper chamber.
So let’s make the case to create the Lords as a respected scrutinizing chamber which works in tandem with the Commons.
Throughout history, stretching back to the 1800s, the Lords has been subject to unwarranted criticism and has had its function undermined. We have seen the perception of the chamber reduced to nothing more than a place where opinions are disregarded and interference from the chamber being seen as an inconvenience, rather than a vital cog in the legislature machine. This must be restored. After the early 20th century, the House of Commons was given more power to pass legislation which it so wished to pass, reflecting the fact that they are the elected representatives of the nation in Parliament. This, in essence, can be seen as a great thing.
What this Labour “supermajority” has highlighted is the value in having a robust upper chamber to keep the government from doing something it may later regret doing, just because they can. Politics is a fast-paced affair, and governments can be quick to try and put through a bill which may help their current political fortunes, at the expense of long-term ramifications for the country. The Lords should be given all the assets it needs in order to prevent this, not the unravelling which we have seen in the decades gone by.
This is not to function as a block to legislation, but to ensure that the quality of the legislation passed is upheld to the highest standard – this is exactly what we should want from Parliament. A well- functioning mechanism with the mission of quality in legislation. The current legislative function of the House of Lords has become nothing more than a glorified House of Commons. This fact is usually met with comments on why keeping the chamber at all. The best direction to go in from now is to give the Lords a beneficial purpose in Parliament as that chamber of standards, not the unravelling of the chamber which Labour are pursuing.
This does not at all mean to undermine the Commons in turn; they are the elected representatives of the country and that should always be respected. What should be considered is having a system which once again ensures the quality of the legislation is made to a high level. The current game of parliamentary ping pong usually ends with the Commons passing the version of the bill which they are most content with, leaving the Lords to try and get as many amendments as they can passed. This cannot be deemed to increase the quality of the bill, as the Commons always know that they have the upper hand in the matter.
The current structure of creating legislation does involve a series of quality- ensuring mechanisms, such as the committee stage, however this does not mean that extra care cannot be taken once the bill is passed to the Lords. Greater scrutiny on certain bills is an asset; one which the House of Lords should be able to do.
Today’s Labour party is taking this topic in the complete opposite direction, with making the Lords “representative of the regions and nations” being incredibly similar to what the function of the House of Commons is for. It should be acknowledged that the differences in the chambers is a great asset for the legislature, not a weakness. Unravelling it all little by little as each Labour government finds its way into power is not a sustainable direction to go in to uphold the standards of both houses.
A system should be found which respects the Commons as the chamber that is elected and representative of the nation, which works in tandem with an upper chamber which has the main aim of passing quality legislation, not being an inconvenient barricade which halts bills entirely, as was the case until the early 20th century. The current rhetoric from the Labour Party undermines the Lords entirely, which may lead to a constitutional calamity if they go too far – and with the current Labour government showing it isn’t impossible to attain such a large majority in the Commons, should we trust all the legislative power in the chamber?
