Lords reform: the Lords is more diverse and democratic than the Commons | Colin Low | Opinion. Nick Clegg describes the House of Lords as "an affront to democracy" and wants it to be wholly or mainly elected. Without this, he maintains, the second chamber lacks legitimacy. His view is neatly summed up in the slogan "the people who make the laws of the land should be elected by people who have to obey the laws of the land".
But democracy is a complex phenomenon with several other dimensions that need to be recognised. Election is a crucial element, of course. But we also want our democracy to be representative, accessible, open and responsive. Take the question of representativeness. With women, the Commons has now at last caught up with the Lords: the proportion of women is 22% in both chambers. But that's on the surface. The two chambers are quite different in attitudes as well. Even from the quantitative point of view, the figures for the whole house may not tell the whole story. I now think of this as a much more broadly based and democratic appointments system. Lords select committees. The House of Lords committees investigate public policy, proposed laws and government activity.
Committees are small groups of members (usually 12 in total) who meet outside the chamber and are appointed to consider specific policy areas. Everyone can watch committees at work. Entry to watch meetings is free and meetings are broadcast online at parliamentlive.tv. Committees can conduct short, narrowly focused investigations or investigate broad, long-term issues. Committees normally publish reports on their findings. The reports: are debated in the House of Lordsprovoke discussion outside Parliamentmake recommendations to government. The government must respond in writing to each report. Members of the House of Lords come from all parts of the UK, and represent a wide range of professions.
The House decides which members sit on each committee. Committee work is a way for members to: When: Committees normally meet weekly. Entry to watch committee meetings is free. Image: House of Lords. Tories should respect the House of Lords for their trade union revolt | Polly Toynbee | Opinion. On the night when MPs, press, business, charity, City interests and lobby groups were poring over the entrails of the budget, across the way the Lords rebelled spectacularly three times over the trade union bill. They did what they were put there for – they stood as a backstop to protect basic rights. This bill, unamended, would have poleaxed trade union membership and Labour’s funding base, without a whisper about corrupt Tory finances. It was plain the government was driving fast into a brick wall, foot down on the accelerator.
This has been obvious ever since the ex-Treasury mandarin Lord Terry Burns – no lefty, he – set up an all-party Lords committee that recommended sensible compromises. The Lords also overturned government objections to electronic balloting, which would make a threshold of a 50% turnout in strike ballots far easier: note that Labour and the unions did not put down an amendment against the 50% threshold itself, choosing compromise as the likelier victory.
Time to cut the House of Lords down to size. The House of Lords: “It is often described as ‘unreformed’ but the removal of most hereditary peers in 1999 was transformative.” © Geoff Pugh/Telegraph/PA Archive/Press Association Read a transcript of Prospect’s roundtable on House of Lords reform Eighteen years ago, Tony Blair’s first government swept to power on a manifesto promising a two-stage reform of the House of Lords: to remove the hundreds of hereditary peers then dominating the chamber, and subsequently to establish a “more democratic and representative” replacement. The first stage largely happened; the second did not—though not for want of discussion. Since 1997, six consecutive government white papers have been published on Lords reform, plus innumerable reports from parliamentary committees and outside bodies (including a Royal Commission). In 2011 Nick Clegg got as far as introducing a bill to create a largely elected second chamber, but abandoned it following joint opposition from Conservative and Labour MPs.
Who needs the House of Lords? This excellent article is a must read for students studying Parliament in Unit 2. It explains in detail the role of the Lords and their importance in their own words – students frequently struggle to explain of an unelected House in a democracy such as the UK but this article makes an excellent case which would be useful for a 25/40 mark essay on Lords reform. It also does an excellent job of outlining the kind of people who are in the Lords, the government pressure on the Lords (especially after the tax credit cuts rejection) and the tension between the upper and lower chambers.
It is a bit of a long read, but about the best account for keeping the House of Lords around at the moment and therefore crucial for analysis and evaluation in a long answer essay. Like this: Like Loading... Curbing the power of the Lords. Parliamentary reform and the power of the Lords is a common theme is Unit 2 questions; it is also frequently poorly answered by students who can easily identity the weaknesses of Lords holding power in a democracy but are less good at identifying the strengths. Following some fairly major defeats of the current government by the Lords, they have come up with a plan to prevent it happening again – curb the powers of the Lords.
The Government are suggesting a bill whereby the Lords will lose their veto over secondary legislation. Should the Lords object to this, the Government plans to force it through using the Parliament Act. This is fascinating for many reasons. It is equally useful for any essay on the UK Constitution – this change would essentially constitute a change to our constitution (as it would move where power lies, and centralise it further in the Commons). Like this: Like Loading... Lords defeats Government again – Employment Support Allowance.
The Lords dealt another blow to Government policy this week, voting against the cuts to Employment Support Allowance. This article is short and worth a read as it gives details about the depth of the proposed cut, who voted against it, the role of Pressure Groups (in this case Mencap). Yet another defeat by the Lords, almost becoming routine at this point, underlines the same points we have made before – this is a Government with a weak majority, there is a greater willingness of the Lords to scrutinise Commons (especially notable since 2010, but certainly since the 1999 reforms), the growth of Parliamentary sovereignty (especially when compared with the political sovereignty of government) and so on. This story doesn’t particularly bring up any new debates, but it certainly furthers existing ones about the power of a government with a weak majority.
Like this: Like Loading... House of Lords – Scotland and the EU. The House of Lords has been noticeably more active since reforms in 1999, but even more so since the 2015 election. Having already ready the childcare bill and tax credits, the government have found themselves facing two fairly major defeats in the Lords recently. Firstly, peers voted in favour of extending the right to vote to 16 and 17 year olds in the EU referendum that is planned in defiance of the government. This is really useful for any question on democracy as the unelected (and therefore undemocratic?) House is the one voting in favour of extending democracy! Secondly the Lords have called for a hold on the Scotland Bill, which looks to change the relationship between Westminster and Holyrood (devo-max), until a financial settlement is completed.
This is despite the fact that the bill has already passed the Commons. Like this: Like Loading... Representation in the Lords. The Commission on Religion and Belief in Public Life has published a report calling for fewer bishops in the Lords to make way for religious leaders of other faiths. This is really useful in any discussion on Unit 2 Parliament topic, but also for Unit 1 Democracy. A common long answer question is whether the Lords is still in need of reform. A basic answer is simply yes/no; a better answer is looking at the reforms that have already taken place in the Lords and the role they play. In this instance, you could use this article to show the lack of functional representation in the Lords, but a bright student would note that the Commons is not much better. Last year, there was a horrific question on which House was more in need of reform – Lords or Commons. While we hope it won’t come up again, this is still good evidence for the need of reform to the HoL.
Like this: Like Loading... 16/17 to get the vote? Previous blog post – The House of Commons have rejected calls for 16/17 year olds to be given the vote in the coming EU referendum. Earlier this month the House of Lords voted that they should be allowed, highlighted the weakness of a government with a small majority. However the government defeated this by 303-253 by using Parliamentary rules which allowed the Commons to defeat it for financial reasons. The HoL is likely to table a new motion which would avoid this…the battle is not over! What great evidence however for any question involving the role of the House of Lords. Like this: Like Loading... The Tories are unstitching the tapestry of our democracy | Andrew Rawnsley | Opinion. Around about now, had David Cameron and George Osborne not been saved from themselves, a lot of people were going to have a Fright Christmas. An unfestive greeting from Downing Street was scheduled to thump through the letter boxes of millions of voters with the miserable tidings that the government was about to make them very much worse off because of cuts to tax credits.
If that had occurred, this would also be happening. Agitated Tory MPs would be all over the airwaves howling to interviewers that their constituency surgeries were filling up with distressed and angry voters. The news bulletins would be leading with the stories of the cuts’ distraught victims, some tearfully telling reporters that they had been forced to tell their children that Santa Claus would not be visiting them this year. There is a reason Fright Christmas did not happen.
It is called the House of Lords. The Lords is decades overdue for reform. Commons vs Lords! Tax credit cuts – the basics: Osbourne’s plan to cut tax credits for the lowly paid has been the government’s most controversial legislation to date. Critics say it will cut up to £1,300 per year for the lowest paid workers in the UK. The government say cuts are offset by the raise in the minimum wage to £9 per hour, however this isn’t to be realised until towards the end of this parliament (2020).
This is highly useful for AS scholars come an essay/exam. Although the government won a vote in the Commons last week (Oct) to continue with this bill, it next faced four votes in the Lords (26th Oct), where it has no majority. Vote 1* – a ‘Fatal Motion’ vote. Vote 2* – Tabled by Cross bencher Molly Meacher seeks to delay the cuts subject to the government revising the bill. Vote 3* – Tabled by Labour peer, Patricia Hollis, this vote could delay the governments tax cut plans for up to three years, whilst the government is forced to implement compensate low paid workers.
Government Defeats in the House of Lords. Tax credits: Pay up, George, you know you're cornered | Politics. Should the House of Lords vote to force George Osborne to rethink his flawed tax credit cuts? Yes. Are David Cameron and his allies talking nonsense when they invoke a constitutional crisis if that happens? Yes again.
Will it happen? Yes, I expect it will and the Treasury will bow to political reality while pretending not to do so. Excellent! In a world where the Labour leadership may be slipping into the hands of tankies and Scotland is run by Blair-style spin doctors in kilts, the tax credit row is a positively old-fashioned one and is welcome for that. Unfortunately most of the guff spoken and written on the tax credit row simply highlights the youth and inexperience of those supposedly in charge of our affairs and commenting on them. Across at the Mail, GCSE-encrusted Dominic Lawson does only slightly better, attacking Lords nonentities in ferocious terms.
The Guardian’s Nick Watt sets it all out very sensibly here, as he and Patrick Wintour have been doing for weeks. Vandalise tax credit reform at your peril, my Lords | Matthew d’Ancona. In recent months, the House of Lords has had a collective rush of blood to the head. To call its present turbulence over Conservative plans to cut tax credits a “constitutional crisis” is premature.
But today’s feisty shin-kicking in the Lords could be tomorrow’s legislative wreck. Not that the Tories are the only party to have been embarrassed by antics in the second chamber. In July, Lord Sewel, the chairman of committees (a senior post which required him to relinquish the Labour whip) resigned his membership of the upper house after lurid revelations about his private life. More recently, the Labour peers Lord Grabiner and Lord Warner have renounced the party whip in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, while Lord Adonis has done the same so that he is free to chair George Osborne’s National Infrastructure Commission. David Cameron’s government tomorrow faces its most serious confrontation with the upper house since the Lords nearly sabotaged Andrew Lansley’s NHS plan in 2012. The Role of the House of Lords and Cameron. While these stories are a couple of months old, they are invaluable ‘idiot’s guides’ for students studying Parliament in Unit 2. The second of these two stories is particularly important – Cameron is often accused of stacking the Lords in his favour by appointing more and more Conservative peers.
This article suggests that the Conservatives do not have a majority in the Lords however and that this could cause a legislative log-jam. Remember that for a bill to become law, it actually has to pass both houses, despite the media focus on the House of Commons. This is particularly notable given that the Lords did defeat the government last night on the amount of free childcare that would be on offer to 3 and 4 year olds by 222 to 209, good evidence of the growing willingness of the Lords to challenge the government.