Matthew Allen
With the encouragement of Lord Norton (see 'Lords
Of The Blog': 'Stirring Up Apathy'; where I am 'Matt'), I submit
the following ideas for the consideration of the Joint Committee.
I do this as one ordinary member of the public; albeit one who
finds the whole history of the Lords quite fascinating.
I shall begin by giving you the text of my alternative
'draft bill'. I shall then add a few 'explanatory notes', which
will be chatty and colloquial in style, rather than academic,
but will not contain any wild assertions, for all that. By way
of introduction, I put it to the Committee that this bill of mine
is less 'ambitious' than the government bill, but also less 'turbulent'.
An alternative draft bill
('House Of Lords Sitting Membership Bill'??) ………
1. "As from 1st January 2014, the total
number of sitting members of the House of Lords shall not exceed
600, at any one time.
2. By the 1st June 2013, the clerks of the house
will have compiled a list of those life peers who wish to continue
sitting in the house from 2014 onwards.
3. By standing orders of the house, there shall
also be a prior agreement about the maximum number of sitting
members to be allocated for each party grouping. This will be
proportionate to their pre-existing share of seats, among all
life peers, but it may build in a slight bias in favour of the
smallest parties, and shall have due regard for non-affiliated
office holders, in this first instance. Crossbenchers shall be
considered to be a 'party grouping' of their own, for these purposes.
4. It is expected that the total number of seats
in the house held by the two largest parties shall be equal, or
very close to equal.
5. If and where it is found that the number of
peers on the clerk's list exceeds the allocated maximum for their
particular party grouping, then the life peers of that grouping
shall hold an election among themselves at the first opportunity,
using the alternative vote system, whereby those who poll the
fewest votes will be removed from the list.
6. This mechanism, in the first instance, only
affects the position and privileges of life peers, and does not
concern itself with the place of bishops, hereditary peers, or
retired law lords in the house.
7. It is expected that around two thirds of life
peers will continue to be sitting members of the house from 2014,
by this mechanism.
8. This legislation does not affect the status
of any peer in terms of their title and honour, nor is it concerned
with any broader questions about the creation of new peers. It
does, however, remove the automatic right of a life peer to sit
and vote in the Lords, following the precedent set for hereditary
peers in 1999.
9. After the January 2014 changes have been put
in place, if a vacancy arises in the house, due to the death of
a sitting life peer, then anybody who holds a life peerage, but
does not have a seat in the house at that point, may put themselves
forward to fill that vacancy. Where there is more than one person
wishing to do this, the winning candidate shall be chosen by a
vote of the whole house. Therefore, these by-elections shall not
be determined by party groupings, as such.
10. As from January 2014, the same principle
shall apply to any hereditary by-elections: all vacancies from
that point onward shall be filled by a vote of the whole house".
Explanatory Notes: Relating to the 10 sections
above
1. This puts the Lords 'ahead of the game' in
slimming down its membership to 600, as the Commons will be of
that size, in the next parliament. There is widespread agreement
that the second chamber should not be larger than the first, and
this is made all the more relevant by this time of cutbacks that
we are going through now. 600 is, indeed, quite 'generous' in
being able to keep on board both the committed frequent-attenders,
and the more occasional attenders who are highly valued for what
they do have to say, when they say it.
2. A simple matter of any interested peer registering
that interest, along with a few basic details. Also provides ample
time for each peer to consider the priority that s/he actually
gives to the business of the house.
3. Each peer will need to choose what affiliation
to be under, when registering. Non-affiliated office holders (eg,
Lord Speaker) will be 'protected' in this process. As a side comment,
the government's aspiration of making the Lords more 'reflective'
of the general election vote could, of course, have been brought
about by a reduction in numbers, rather than an increase in numbers!
4. and 7: I admit that my statistical
methodology and/or maths will be a bit 'off' in places, here—but
you should be able to follow my general drift about the likely
and desired outcome. Using recent data from the Parliament website,
this 'balancing act' actually works out remarkably neatly.
The grand total membership of the Lords now stands
at 826. My bill provides for a reduction in the number
of sitting life peers, in order to cap membership at 600.
This means—one way or another—the departure of 226
life peers by 2014…..… I say, 'one way or another',
because this cuts out the need for any agonising over whether
there should be retirement ages, strengthened leaves-of-absences/
disqualifications etc.—The current grand total of life peers
is 686. 226 out of 686 comes to about a third. This calls for
the 'voting in' of two thirds of the current party groupings
('natural wastage' being too long-winded a contributing factor
to take account of, here).
- 2/3 of Conservative Life Peers
(170) = 113; Plus their 48 Hereditaries = CONSERVATIVE ('POST
2014')
HOLD OF: 161
- 2/3 of Labour Life Peers (235)
= 157; Plus their 4 Hereditaries = LABOUR HOLD OF: 161
- Of Lib Dems L.Peers (87) =
65 (smaller party bias in favour); Plus 4 Hereds = LIB DEM
HOLD OF: 69
- Of Crossbench L.Peers (154)
= 103; Plus 33 Hereds = CROSSBENCH HOLD OF: 136
- Leaving approx: 22 'OTHERS'
(Preserving all the very small-party people, party-independents
and non-affiliated officers; but losing 2 or 3 notably 'dodgy
peers' who we won't bother to name here).
- POST 2014: ESTIMATED PROPORTIONS
(out of 600) in %: CON: 26.8% … LAB: 26.8% … LIB DEMS:
11.5% … CROSS: 22.67% OTHERS: 3.67%.
5. A life-peer version of the first round of
hereditary elections, in effect, with each candidate submitting
a 75-word summary etc—and with the same outcome in mind,
to wit: it will allow each group to postively identify who the
most interesting and interested people are, among their ranks.
As a side comment, much mention has been made of
the benefit of the Lords being complementary to the Commons, rather
than competitive. At the same time, most people seem to welcome
signs of the Lords becoming more assertive! I am of the opinion
that a little more competition would be a good thing, insofar
as it will not give any government an 'easy ride'. I suggest that
the 'filtering' of the life peers in my bill, which would in itself
be done in a very publicly transparent way, would give the 'chosen'
peers a renewed sense of confidence in their handling of legislation.
6 and 10: I cannot see any advantage to our 'parliamentary
life', in any sense of that term, in undermining the constitutional
position of the bishops, retired law lords, or hereditary peers.
The bishops exercise their function of providing a broader 'moral
perspective' with care and responsibility. I would also contend
that the house has already lost some of its 'weightiness' (in
fact, and in the eyes of the public), by no longer having seats
for active senior judges, and I would like to see the status of
the 'law lord' restored, even if it was only for former supreme-court
judges (granted this is outside the scope of my bill).
Finally, the 'exempted' 92 hereditaries are clearly
people of high quality, with the particular distinction of making
both regular and concise spoken interventions in the chamber.
The historic problem of the conservative party being able to 'bus
in' hundreds of 'backwoodsmen' has been dealt with. Entry to the
house now requires the 'second hurdle' of a by-election. It is
a working precedent. Note that my bill would make the whole house
the 'electorate' for all future by-elections; thereby answering
the specific complaint sometimes raised about the vanishingly
small sitting-hereditary party-group electorates in the case of
Labour and the Lib Dems, at the moment.
8. I suggest that this would represent a significant
'mind-shift' in the way a new arrival in the Lords would be regarded.
Internally, UCL's 'House Full' report indicated a deepening dissatisfaction
with the 'fractious atmosphere' created by having too many members
in the chamber. Externally, the public perception is that various
'establishment/in-crowd' types are routinely gifted a comfy red
seat, with all its associated prestige, public-platform influence
and perks. The House Of Lords Appointments Commission has done
little to dispel this feeling, since it is in itself something
of a cosy quango. For all of the outstanding 'workhorses' and
expert-analysts in the house, the 'currency' of the life peerage
has been devalued by the numerous examples of the people who have
awarded peerages for less-than-noble reasons; and/or by the people
who have made little or no effort to engage in the serious business
of the house. In the light of what I have just said, I also have
to caution the house at this juncture that striking a self-congratulatory
tone about the extent of experience and expertise among the peers
does not come across at all well on the television! A quick glance
through the back-stories of many peers often reveals that they
have tried to enter the Commons, and failed. So there are 'consolation
prizes' for political-party oldies in there already, and not much
would change, in that respect, were the government's proposals
to come to fruition. In any event, experience and expertise are
not the be-all and end-all; whatever happened to the broad-minded
amateur, or the fresh-thinking youngster?
Prior to the 1999 Act, in what may have seemed like
a piece of frivilous obstruction at the time, Viscount Cranborne
expressed a concern about a having a house-full of members who,
"owed their presence to the living rather than the safely
dead". Those words turned out to have quite a prophetic ring
to them when New Labour's 'Stage Two' reform never went ahead,
and various murky tales came out about 'Tony's Cronies'
and 'Cash For Honours'. My point is that introducing a 'second
hurdle' for a peer, of having to be 'elected-into' the house would
remove the 'sting' of the power of patronage, in precisely the
same way that the hereditary by-elections have removed the sting
of the power of birthright. There would be no need to break the
link between the house and the peerage. New peers could be created
at any time, in much the same way as now ~ but that would
have no immediate impact on the capped-membership house. Therefore,
no big influxes from a new government's favoured people, nor from
the outgoing government's dissolution list. I hope you can see
that, though my bill may seem to be 'tinkering' in nature compared
to the government bill, it is not merely a 'holding operation',
nor is it coming firmly down on the side of either the pro-government
or anti-government voices, on the matter of Lords reform. I regret
to observe a certain lack of imagination, in fact, in the way
both of those positions are typically advanced. Making a big play
of bringing in a similar mode of legitimacy to the Commons on
the one hand (pro-Government); or focussing on the primacy of
the Commons on the other (anti-Government) both overlook possibly
the most crucial reason for having a second chamber at all. Democracy
(the 'least worst' system) does not protect itself against
ignorance, abuse, corruption, disregard for liberties or traditions,
mass manipulation and short-term populism. It therefore needs
something which is 'non-democratic' to act as a brake upon itself.
Nonetheless, we need to be doing everything we can to make sure
that this 'non-democratic' body will be held in high public regard.
That is the key to appreciating the healthy developments which
my bill would bring about—even though they appear to be
fairly 'gentle' in nature, and they take care to 'go with the
grain' of our history.
9. Recall from my notes on 4 and 7 the fair balance
of 'allegiances' which would result from the life-peer elections,
in the first instance. My bill seeks to sustain a sense of the
house managing its own affairs; by 'co-opting' in the best of
the bunch, as vacancies arise. The significant Crossbench presence
should help to ensure that party loyalty would not count for all
that much in future whole house by-elections. Imagine for a moment
that this bill had already been in effect in 2010; and that a
vacancy had arisen, which the likes of Michael Howard, John Prescott,
and Paul Boateng were all interested in filling. I'm using three
random examples of 'big hitters' in British political life here,
who have received life peerages, to illustrate the enhanced sense
of the 'winner' among them being recognised as the most deserving
and valued 'new recruit'. He would have needed to have made a
persuasive case (open for any member of the public to comment
on, in advance), in order to secure the privilege of the seat
in the Lords. It would no longer be possible for the media to
portray him as having just 'strolled into' the house; and the
very process of these elections would help to focus the minds
of all Lords members as to just what their priorities are and
should be, in the greater scheme of things.
30 January 2012
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