Sir Stuart Bell MP
1. The effect of the Bill on the powers of the
House of Lords and the existing conventions governing the relationship
between the Lords and the Commons.
In constitutional law the term convention has been
accepted to describe an obligation, whether it derives from custom,
agreement, expedience or practice rather than arising from a formal
agreement.
By their very nature conventions cannot be codified;
if they were, they would no longer be conventions but codes. Such
codes would become as statute law and any custom, agreement, expedience
or practice which followed would require a change in the codes.
Thus conventions that exist at the moment may evolve and are expected
to evolve.
Lord Strathclyde, the Chancellor of the Duchy of
Lancaster, in a debate in the Lords 17 May 2011, declared that
'the only basis for having an elected House would be to give this
House greater authority to use its powers more assertively and
effectively.' In the same debate, Lord Cunningham of Felling referred
to a report entitled Conventions of the UK Parliament, a report
unanimously approved by a House of Lords committee, unanimously
approved by the House of Lords itself, and unanimously approved
by the House of Commons. The report said, inter alia, that 'if
this House, or part of it, were to be elected, and people had
a mandate, it would be bound to call into question the relationship
and the conventions operating between the two Houses'.
Indeed, the report went further and said in Paragraph
61:
'Should any firm proposals come forward to change
the composition of the House of Lords, the conventions between
the Houses would have to be examined again.'
Lord Cunningham went on to look at the relationship
between the House of Representatives and the Senate in the United
States of America and between the Japan Diet's House of Representatives
and House of Councillors. They moved to change their powers in
the relationships, just as the Upper House in the United Kingdom
with an elected mandate would seek to do, but with the most profound
consequences for the governance and the constitution of their
countries.
Lord Howarth of Newport pointed out 22 June 2011
that when the United States Federal Senate became directly elected,
its Members serving longer terms—though not fifteen-year
terms—the Senate became the senior House. He added that
'the United States legislature is characterised by permanent conflict
and impasse, with the Executive unable to secure their preferred
legislation'. This was dramatically shown this year when the Senate
and Congress could not agree on measures to raise the debt ceiling
of the Federal government until the last moment, troubling the
financial markets and the entire global economy, and lowering
the prestige of the United States in the world.
Lord Strathclyde declared 17 May 2011 that he fully
expected the conventions and agreements between the House of Lords
and House of Commons to change, to evolve and to adapt to different
circumstances. He thought it would be very strange if they did
not do so. Lord Strathclyde also thought that both Houses would
be able to develop a mature relationship so as to retain the best
of what exists now. It would mean a more assertive House of Lords
with the authority of the people and an elected mandate. Lord
Strathclyde did not say what he thought that mandate would be.
Would candidates run on personal or party manifestoes? Would these
manifestoes mirror those of candidates for the Commons?
2. Would they commit themselves to upholding
the Parliament Acts?
Baroness D'Souza, speaking in the same debate 17
May 2011, declared as a cross-bencher that in her view the outcome
of an elected House would be to give it more political power than
it currently has. That would be the inevitable result of an elected
House, or even a partly-elected House. Baroness D'Souza thought
this would eventually result in the power of veto creeping into
the Lords; otherwise what would be the reason for undertaking
such radical change?
Baroness D'Souza declared:
'Power is, as we all know, a tricky area and will
have to be thoroughly addressed and resolved by the proposed pre-legislative
committee. The issue of powers is so fundamental and this is so
radical a proposed change that it may be justifiable to rephrase
the question of reform to one of whether the House of Lords is
in fact necessary at all...I cannot be convinced that an elected
House would do its work better than the present House'.
When the debate was resumed 21 June 2011, Baroness
Lady Royall of Blaisdon, speaking on behalf of Her Majesty's Opposition,
declared that the changes to the House of Lords as currently constituted,
and its replacement by 'an elected Senate', will automatically
affect the primacy of the House of Commons. This was supported
by Baroness Taylor of Bolton on 22 June 2011, who declared in
the same debate that the power of the Lords would increase and
the power of the Common diminish in the event of the present Lords
being replaced by an elected Chamber.
Lord Davies of Oldham acknowledged that the greatest
weakness of the Draft Bill was its 'complete failure to identify
the issue of powers'.
Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon declared that an
elected Chamber would 'change the balance between us and the other
Chamber. It will not challenge the primacy of the other Chamber,
but it will challenge the absolute supremacy of the other Chamber—that
is called check and balance'. There may be a contradiction in
terms, or perhaps Lord Ashdown does not think them mutually exclusive,
between challenging primacy or supremacy, but the important words
are change and challenge. And when Lord Ashdown talks of check
and balance he overlooks that it is the role of the Commons to
hold the Executive to account. This would appear to be a further
additional constitutional role of an elected Second Chamber, should
this come about, in accordance with the Ashdown doctrine.
Concerns were expressed in the Commons when the House
of Lords Reform Draft Bill was presented 17 May 2011 by the Deputy
Prime Minister, Mr Nick Clegg. Mrs Eleanor Laing raised the question
of the balance between the two elected Chambers. She asked how
that balance of power would change. Mr David Blunkett asked whether
a mandate given to the Second Chamber would reduce the mandate
of the House of Commons.
Mr Sadiq Khan, on behalf of Her Majesty's Opposition,
asked how the government proposed to deal with conventions. He
specifically asked whether these conventions should be codified.
Mr Khan returned to this on 27 June 2011 when he declared the
inadequacy of Clause Two of the Draft Bill which simply referred
to the primacy of the Commons. He referred to the Joint Committee
on Conventions chaired by Lord Cunningham. He declared that Clause
Two was 'inadequate and ignores the work done on rules and conventions
by previous Committees'. Mr Khan further declared the new Joint
Committee would have to recognise this fact and 'seek to open
up the issue of powers and conventions; otherwise the reform process
runs the risk of being fatally flawed'.
Mr Frank Dobson declared 17 May 2011:
'Surely, if it is to be elected, any self-respecting
elected Members of the Upper House will not feel themselves bound
by the customs and practice that have applied to an unelected
Chamber—and we will thus get conflict between this Chamber
and the Upper Chamber'.
In fact, it is because the Second Chamber is not
elected that the conventions exist in order to avoid conflict
between the elected and unelected Chambers.
Thus it is a perfectly reasonable convention that
the unelected Chamber shall not hold up the legislation introduced
by the government and emanating from the elected Chamber, even
where such legislation was not proposed in a manifesto. The need
for conventions would not survive if both Chambers were elected
and they would need to be codified in a set of strict rules. If
reform has been held up for a hundred years, as government spokespersons
state, it was precisely because this conundrum could not be resolved.
The Deputy Prime Minister, in his responses 17 May
2011, referred to powers remaining the same as they reside in
the Parliament Acts, but did not address the issue of conventions.
Indeed, he sidestepped the issue by referring to the different
methods of election and to composition, as if this resolved rather
than enhanced the difficulties likely to arise with conventions.
The Deputy Prime Minister further sidestepped the issue on 27
June 2011when again he fell back on a description of election
and composition. He prayed in aid Baroness Quinn in the Lords
who declared that Second Chambers 'generally live within their
powers'. Neither Baroness Quinn nor the Deputy Prime Minister
differentiated between powers as laid down by statute and those
conventions which arise out of customs, agreements, expedience
or practice.
This issue, however, must be resolved.
In his contribution on the floor of the House 27
June 2011, the Deputy Prime Minister declared that the reason
why he supported the single transferable vote for elections to
the Second Chamber is that it would provide this Chamber with
greater independence from party control. This would equally challenge
the control of the Executive to get its legislation through. The
Liberal Democratic MP, Mr Tim Farron, is on record as declaring
that Members elected in a different Chamber by the single transferable
vote will have greater legitimacy than those elected to the Commons
on a system of first-past-the post. The concept of conflict between
two elected Chambers is clearly building up. Legitimacy and accountability
go to the heart of any future struggle between an elected House
of Commons and an elected Upper Chamber.
It shall have serious constitutional consequences
if not addressed.
Mr Clegg made much of accountability on 17 May 2011,
but where is the accountability when a Member elected to the Second
Chamber is elected for fifteen years and cannot stand again? Governments
are accountable because they face re-election at the time of a
General Election. Members of Parliament elected for five years
are similarly accountable. There can be no accountability when
there are no plans for the elected Member to the Second Chamber
to confront the electorate a Second time. The only accountability
of an elected Member to the Second Chamber would be popular whim,
powerful gusts of public opinion pushed by a frenzied media which
belie all that a Second Chamber stands for, that is a period of
reflection.
The Second Chamber would become the opposite of
what it is now.
Long-standing opposition to an elected Second Chamber
goes back to the early 1900s when a Liberal leader, Campbell-Bannerman,
declared that 'to set up an elective Second Chamber would be to
destroy the unique character of the House of Commons and introduce
a new dissension into the heart of the constitution.' Jim Callaghan,
who became Prime Minister, declared in a Tribune interview 20
June 1980, that an elected assembly would challenge the elected
Commons. Constitutional law has long held that a reformed House
of Lords based on the elective principle would inevitably come
into conflict with the House of Commons: Wade and Phillips; Constitutional
Law; Sixth Edition. Labour leaders Michael Foot and Tony Blair
both believed an elected Second Chamber would come into conflict
with the Commons.
This has held up any progress towards an elected
Second Chamber for a century.
The present relations between both Houses of Parliament
The present relationship between the two Houses of
Parliament is governed by statute and convention.
This is made clear in the House of Lords Reform Draft
Bill. The statute consists of the Parliament Acts of 1911 and
1949 that provide the basic underpinning of the Parliamentary
relationship. This reflects the supremacy of the Commons over
the Lords. The statute provides that in certain circumstances
legislation may be passed without the agreement of the House of
Lords. It may be delayed for thirteen months. It is not intended
that these statutes be amended in the event of their being an
elected Second Chamber. There is an additional statutory bar on
the Lords in that it has no powers over money bills. In the words
of Nick Clegg, the Commons has the decisive right over supply.
The Summary of Proposals to the Draft Bill refers
to the series of conventions which have grown up over a period
of time and which govern the relationships between the two Houses
on a day-to-day basis. These include that the House of Lords should
pass the legislative programme of the government which commands
the confidence of the House of Commons. Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon,
however, put paid to this convention in his speech on 21 June
2011:
'(the Lords) does small things well, but is it constructed
in a way that would prevent a Government with an overwhelming
majority in the other place taking this country to an unwise and,
as we now know, probably illegal war? No it would not because
it did not. I cannot imagine that the decision to introduce the
poll tax and the decision to take this country to war would have
got through a Chamber elected on a different mandate and in a
different period, or if there had been a different set of political
weights in this Chamber from the one down to the other end.'
More modern-day parallels might have been cited,
such as objection to tuition fees, reforms to the National Health
Service, and the proposed introduction of elected Police Commissioners.
How would an elected Second Chamber deal with these in the light
of the Ashdown doctrine, supported by the Minister of State, Ministry
of Justice, Lord McNally, who declared that an elected Second
Chamber would have the right to say No to the Commons?
Lord McNally wished that the Lords had voted on the
Iraq war. With two elected Chambers, would the will of the Commons
be subverted? Would its will prevail? Would legislation be delayed?
Would the government of the day get its way, not only in the Commons
where it had a majority, but in an elected Second Chamber where
Members have been elected on proportional representation, who
declare they have a mandate from their electorate and feel accountable
to them?
If an elected Second Chamber were to pursue the Ashdown
doctrine, the second convention referred to in the Summary of
Proposals would also be upended, that is the convention that whether
or not a Bill has been included in an election Manifesto, the
Second Chamber should think very carefully about rejecting a Bill
of which the Commons has approved. There is a third convention,
already mentioned, that the Second Chamber will consider government
bills in reasonable time and a further convention which supports
the financial privileges of the House of Commons. The Summary
of Proposals makes it clear that it does not wish to codify these
conventions but to leave them as they are, as defined in Clause
Two of the Draft Bill.
The means of ensuring continued primacy of the House
of Commons under the new arrangements
It is proposed to introduce for elections to the
Second Chamber proportional representation. The stated aim is
to introduce into the Second Chamber a diffuse number of elected
representatives, not representing a government majority in the
Commons nor subject to party control, as the Deputy Prime Minister
has said. But on the basis of the Ashdown doctrine there would
be inculcated into the heart of our constitution a conflict of
wills between the two Parliamentary institutions. The paradox
of this is that existing conventions would not only have to be
ratified but strengthened. They would have to be codified.
3. The essential aim is that the will of the
Commons continues to enjoy primacy.
Given what would be a clear intention of an elected
Second Chamber to challenge the conventions, in not authorising
military action with which it might not agree, or with a poll
tax which it did not agree, if this did not fall within the purview
of the financial privileges of the Commons, the Commons would
be required to assert itself through new powers:
— That
a public bill originating in the House of Commons on which there
was disagreement between the two Houses should be capable of being
presented for Royal Assent at the end of a period of six calendar
months from the date of disagreement provided that a resolution
directing that it should be presented had been passed in the House
of Commons.
— For
this purpose, disagreement would be defined so as to cover the
situation where a bill sent up from the Commons is rejected by
the Second Chamber, where a motion that it should be read at any
stage or passed is rejected or amended, or where the Second Chamber
insist on an amendment which is not acceptable to the Commons.
— That
the Second Chamber would have a period of sixty Parliamentary
days in which to consider a public bill. If its consideration
of a bill on which there was subsequent disagreement exceeded
this period, the excess would count as part of the period of six
months' delay following disagreement.
— Since
it would be theoretically possible for the Second Chamber to destroy
a disputed bill by postponing any overt disagreement until the
end of the session, the bill should also be treated as disagreed
to if after the sixty Parliamentary days the Second Chamber rejected
a motion necessary to its progress or, in the last resort, if
the Commons resolved that the bill should be so treated. A suitable
period of notice would have to be given in the latter case.
— A
bill would be capable of being presented for Royal Assent at the
end of the period of delay, notwithstanding that this ran over
a prorogation of Parliament and into a new session. Similarly,
in the case of a dissolution, any bill which had been passed by
the House of Commons and to which the Second Chamber had disagreed
could be presented for Royal Assent in the new Parliament after
the period of six months' delay had elapsed from the date of the
disagreement.
— Where
Royal Assent was to be given in the following session of Parliament,
it would be necessary for the bill to be submitted within thirty
Parliamentary days from the end of the period of delay after disagreement.
— Since
there is little likelihood of conflict between a government and
the Second Chamber on private bills and bills to confirm provisional
orders, and since the quasi-judicial procedures on such bills
would make it inappropriate to apply the Parliament Acts procedure
to them, it is proposed to make no change in the present powers
of the Second Chamber on private legislation.
— As
regards secondary legislation, that is instruments which require
approval by each House of Parliament as a condition of coming
into force or continuing in force, if the Second Chamber rejects
a motion for the approval of an instrument which had previously
been approved by the Commons, and the Commons thereafter confirm
their approval, the instrument shall be treated as approved by
both Houses.
— The
existing provision in Section 2 of the Parliament Act 1911 which
excludes from the application of the Act any bill to extend the
duration of a Parliament would be continued in relation to the
new powers of the Second Chamber.
In order to be sure before the event that there can
be no conflict between an elected Commons and an elected Second
Chamber, in accordance with the Ashdown doctrine, present conventions
would have to be codified into a new Parliament Act further limiting
the delaying powers of the Lords to avoid a conflict with the
Commons. Since the government has declared it is not its intention
to codify conventions, such an Act would be required on the statute
book before the Bill to reform the Lords is enacted.
Otherwise Parliament would be writing conflict and
crisis into the heart of its constitution.
Addressing the so-called democratic deficit
Much is made of a so-called democratic deficit.
It is said that because the Commons is elected so,
too, there should be an elected Second Chamber, and that without
election the Second Chamber lacks legitimacy and accountability.
Lord Ashdown in his speech to the Lords 21 June 2011 declared:
'the fact that we do not have democratic legitimacy
undermines our capacity to act as a check and balance on the excessive
power of the Executive backed by an excessive majority in the
House of Commons'.
It is clear that, in accordance with the Ashdown
doctrine, the reduction of the so-called democratic deficit and
the extension of supposed democratic legitimacy amount to the
creation of conflict and crisis within the heart of our constitution.
The role of the Second Chamber is as a revising Chamber,
a Chamber that provides for informed debate, and by its delaying
powers may lay a hand on the shoulder of any government, or seek
to correct legislation that may be hastily prepared and introduced
and ill-considered in the House of Commons. These are the correctives
to the so-called 'excessive power backed by an excessive majority'
in the House of Commons. In the view of Lord Howarth, there is
democratic legitimacy in elections to the Commons. Where can there
be a democratic deficit where the House of Lords defers to the
democratic authority of the Commons? He declared that we have
an advisory House of Lords and an elected House of Commons: asymmetrical
bicameralism.
As Lord Lawson of Blaby pointed out in the debate
on 21 June 2011, there is no lack of legitimacy in the fact that
Members of the Bank of England's Monetary Policy are not elected,
or Members of the judiciary. It might be added that the Police
Commissioner for London is not elected.
The constitution of the United Kingdom consists of
the Monarch, the Lords and Commons. If one is to say there is
a democratic deficit in relation to a non-elected Second Chamber,
and if one prays in aid bicameral Parliaments elsewhere that are
elected, even though under Federal systems, why should the Monarchy
not be abolished and replaced with a President, where in other
countries Presidents are also elected? They might be executive
or ceremonial but they are elected all the same.
No one suggests for a moment that the democratic
deficit should extend to the Monarchy, but then why should it
extend to the House of Lords which has accomplished its role as
a revising Chamber, a delaying Chamber, a focus for well-informed
debate, and an initiator of government legislation in order to
speed up the legislative process, and where the Lords has already
been subjected to reform with the introduction of life peerages
and the removal of hereditary peers? Further reforms have been
put forward by Lord Steel of Aikwood, some incorporated in the
House of Lords Reform Draft Bill: a statutory Appointments Commission,
ending by-elections for hereditary peers, permanent leave of absence
and dealing with those convicted of serious criminal offences.
All intended to improve the workings of the Second Chamber without
dismantlement amounting to abolition.
It is said that all three major parties advocated
a wholly-elected Second Chamber in their 2010 manifestoes. The
Labour Party manifesto declared:
'We will ensure that the hereditary principle is
removed from the House of Lords. Further democratic reform to
create a fully elected Second Chamber will then be achieved in
stages. We will consult widely on these principles, and on an
open-list proportional representation electoral system for the
Second Chamber, before putting them to the people in a referendum'.
The Labour Party in opposition has accepted that
the cross-party Lords Reform Working Group did not have a substantive
discussion on the powers of a reformed House of Lords, or how
to deal with the conventions that currently govern the relationships
between the two Chambers, and whether these should be codified.
The Opposition has declared how the government planned to approach
this important matter would be critical in determining any progress
on the Draft Bill. The Labour Opposition wishes that a reformed
House of Lords be based on clear principles so that a new Second
Chamber can command public support as part of a renewed Parliament.
Presumably, till further notice, the Opposition stands by its
election commitment that there be a referendum on this.
For any major constitutional change, such as replacement
of the House of Lords by an elected Second Chamber, elected either
wholly or partially, a referendum would be required. It should
not be overlooked that the Monarch is the third strand of our
Parliament. Prior to the introduction of the Parliament Act 1911,
the Monarch of the day invited the Prime Minister of the day to
provide legitimacy for the Act by holding and winning a General
Election. This the Prime Minister did. It would be within this
spirit for so major a change not to be endorsed in the modern
era by a General Election but certainly by a referendum. And whilst
the Monarch acts upon the advice of her Ministers, the Monarch
is able equally to give advice.
An Eighty Percent Elected Chamber
The Coalition government supports a wholly-elected
Second Chamber but leaves open the option for a Second Chamber
eighty percent elected. In an eighty percent elected Second Chamber,
the appointed independent Members would be nominated by a statutory
Appointments Commission and recommended by the Prime Minister
for appointment by the Queen. Twenty Members would be appointed
at the time of each election to the Second Chamber with the same
term as elected Members. In an elected Second Chamber, the government
proposes that there be up to twelve places for representatives
of the Church of England.
The Lords is able at present in any debate on legislation,
or in any general debate, to call upon an array of expert knowledge
that is perhaps unique in any Second Chamber anywhere in the world.
Lord Howe of Aberavon pointed out in the Lords debate 21 June
2011 that in a debate on the National Health Service in November
2001, nineteen speakers included two former deans of university
medical schools, a practising dentist, a consultant obstetrician,
a consultant paediatrician, a former GP, a former professor of
nursing, a former director of Age Concern, and the President of
Mencap. Lord Howe wondered what wider complement of expertise
and analysis would a Second Chamber get if it were exposed to
election.
The Church of England is by law established and twenty-six
Lords Spiritual sit in the Lords by ancient usage and statute.
The bishops hold their seats in the Lords till they resign their
episcopal office. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York and the
Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester have the right to a seat
in the Lords. The remaining twenty-one are the other twenty-one
diocesan bishops having seniority of date of appointment. When
such a bishop dies or resigns his place in the House of Lords
is taken not by his successor but by the other diocesan bishops.
In 1847 on the creation of the Bishopric of Manchester it was
enacted that the number of bishops sitting in Parliament should
not be increased in consequence. Similar provision has been made
on the creation of subsequent new bishoprics, for example the
Bishoprics of Southwark and Birmingham, created by Act of Parliament
in 1904.
4. The Monarch is head of both Church and State.
Bishops sitting in the House of Lords are part of
the Church-State relationship. Any abolition of bishops sitting
in the Lords shall weaken that relationship. The bishops represent
the fabric of society in the Lords; they represent some seventy
thousand parishes throughout the land of England. They are often
more in touch with the people than elected representatives. As
Second Church Estates Commissioner, Mr Tony Baldry MP, has said
the two Archbishops and ten senior diocesan bishops would bring
'considerable wisdom and expertise' to a reformed Second Chamber.
The removal of bishops by the creation of a wholly-elected Second
Chamber will be detrimental to the Church-State relationship,
shall weaken the established Church, and shall lead to further
calls for an ending to establishment.
A wholly-elected Second Chamber shall lead to the
removal of expertise from the Lords which shall deprive the Second
Chamber of wisdom based upon experience.
Election on a System of Proportional Representation
The Summary of Proposals to the House of Lords Reform
Draft Bill indicate that the Coalition Agreement set out the government's
commitment to a system of proportional representation for the
elected Second Chamber. The system is designed to ensure the proportion
of available seats won by a given party corresponds closely to
the proportion of votes cast for that party at the election. Thus
thirty per cent of the votes cast should win as close as possible
to thirty per cent of seats available.
The declared intention of proportional representation
is to create a result where no party shall have an overall majority
in the elected Second Chamber. In the words of Mr Clegg, the Deputy
Prime Minister, this would loosen party control of Members elected
to the Second Chamber. As Mr Clegg stated on the floor of the
House of Commons 17 May 2011, Members to the Second Chamber would
be elected according to a different voting system with a mandate
entirely different from Members of the House of Commons.
There would appear to be two reasons why proportional
representation is being espoused for elections to a Second Chamber:
— No
overall majority is likely, thus loosening party control ;
— The
system of election must be different to differentiate this from
elections to the Commons.
The Coalition Agreement was entered into prior to
a referendum on whether the electorate wanted to change the voting
system to the House of Commons to the alternative vote from first-past-the-post.
That referendum was resoundingly lost. The electorate voted against
a change to the voting system. However, a change is now being
proposed that goes to the heart of the unwritten constitution
and places an elected Second Chamber in certain confrontation
with an elected Commons where the two election systems are different.
The Deputy Prime Minister has said 27 June 2011 that
there are already an array of different electoral systems that
all co-exist: elections to the European Parliament, that used
in London, and those used in devolved Assemblies. However, none
of these have been tested in a referendum, as has the alternative
vote, and none are at the heart of the constitution. And none
bring a Second Chamber into conflict with the Commons. As Mr Sadiq
Khan has said 17 May 2011:
'bearing in mind that the country comprehensively
rejected the AV system two weeks ago, is the Deputy Prime Minister
seriously suggesting that he should impose a system of proportional
representation for the Second Chamber without consulting the electorate?'
Nor is it imaginary to state that two Chambers elected
on two different voting systems will come into conflict.
It is worth repeating that the President of the Liberal
Democratic Party, Tim Farron MP, has declared that those Members
elected by proportional representation will have greater legitimacy
than those elected to the Commons under first-past-the-post. This
indeed is the tenor of statements from all leading Liberal Democrats,
not surprisingly since on a system of proportional representation
the party would have more seats and therefore more power in an
elected Second Chamber that they are now able to muster in the
Commons under first-past-the-post.
5. Conclusions
- The perception of conflict
between two elected Chambers, each vying for supremacy, is the
reason why reform of the Lords as now proposed has never come
about in the last century.
- The House of Lords has been subject to reform
and can be reformed again without being elected whilst maintaining
its essential as a revising Chamber and debating Chamber and a
Chamber where primary legislation may originate.
- The House of Lords Reform Draft Bill as it stands
shall create perpetual conflict and crisis in the event a Second
Chamber is elected by way of proportional representation where
the Commons is elected by first-past-the-post.
- The Reform Bill introduced by Lord Steel and
partially incorporated in the Reform Draft Bill would meet the
need for Lords reform without disturbing the inherent balance
within the constitution, that of Monarch, Lords and Commons, together
with the place of the Established Church within that constitution.
- A reformed Lords along the lines of the Steel
Bill shall not introduce potential crisis and conflict into the
heart of the constitution, addressing a so-called democratic deficit
that might lead in future years to the role of the Monarchy coming
into question, and whether a democratic deficit should be addressed
here too.
- A Second Chamber duly elected could only come
into existence where all those conventions that now exist between
Lords and Commons are codified, in an Act of Parliament that amends
the Parliament Acts 1911-49, this to prevent conflict and crisis,
and confirm the supremacy of the elected Commons.
- And not only must conventions be codified but
they must be modified along the lines suggested in Section Three
of this submission in order to ensure definitive supremacy or
primacy of the House of Commons over the Second Chamber.
- If such codification did not take place the government's
reasonable reliance on the convention that its legislation will
not be held up in the Second Chamber would come into serious jeopardy
where the government of the day was proposing unpopular but necessary
measures, or measures that had not appeared in its manifesto.
- This would result in more falling back upon the
Parliament Acts than hitherto.
- In any event, such a major change to our constitution,
could only come about following a referendum:
- Whether the electorate wishes
the House of Lords to be replaced by a Second Chamber wholly-elected
;
- Whether the electorate wishes the House of Lords
to be replaced by a Second Chamber partially elected ;
- Whether it wishes an election by first-past-the-post
or proportional representation?
- That a wholly-elected Second
Chamber shall deprive this Chamber of expertise and experience
now available to the present Lords and which makes the Chamber
the finest debating House in the world with its concomitant impact
upon legislation being subject to review and amendment.
- That reform of the Lords may be achieved by adopting
the Bill introduced by Lord Steel and other such streamlining
reforms without disturbing the constitutional balance between
Lords and Commons.
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