House of Lords

8 Key excerpts on "House of Lords"

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  The Developing British Political System

  The 1990s

  • Ian Budge, David McKay(Authors)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Clearly these different situations have different consequences for relations between government and Parliament, and relations within Parliament itself, which we shall explore below. Besides supporting governments, however, and providing their members (all members of a government have to be MPs or Peers) Parliament has the equally important role – at least in constitutional theory – of scrutiny, discussion and, if necessary, criticism of executive actions. It is this aspect we shall concentrate on in this chapter. There are grounds for believing that the obsessive secrecy of British governments and their desire to manipulate information to their own advantage undermine Parliament’s role as a forum for informed criticism and constructive debate. Together with the majority party’s (i.e. the government’s ) control over procedures and legislation, they may deprive ordinary MPs of any real political influence at all. In order to investigate these points we have to look at the structure of Parliament and the nature of its business, before examining the pressures for reform which may come to the fore in the 1990s.

  The structure of Parliament

  The Lords

  Although we generally equate ‘Parliament’ with the elected House of Commons, it also comprises the nominated and hereditary House of Lords. Britain is the only country in the world to contain such a chamber within a democratically elected Parliament. Its inappropriateness in this context has been clear since 1911, when the Parliament Act (restricting its previous power of veto to one of delay over legislation) promised fundamental reform later. At the end of the century it still exists, with the same delaying powers.

  Yet the pressure of legislation does render necessary a ‘revising’ chamber to consider Bills more carefully than the House of Commons (which under ‘guideline’ procedures often passes legislation without properly debating it). It must also be said that although the Lords is dominated by hereditary peers, most of its more active members are those nominated by the government to a ‘life peerage’. In addition, an active role is played on certain issues by judges and bishops who have attained their position by merit. While hereditary peers still attend (some of course being distinguished in their own right) they do not dominate discussion although they may crucially influence voting – usually in favour of a Conservative government.

  The House, being composed of generally elderly and privileged people, does incline towards the Conservatives and it grew increasingly out of sympathy with the minority and small majority Labour governments of the 1970s, obstructing much of their legislation. (Its delaying powers give it an effective veto if a government is approaching the end of its term or fears defeat from a reintroduction of the Bill in the House of Commons to override the Lords.)

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  Reform of the House of Lords

  • Philip Norton(Author)
  • 2017(Publication Date)
  • Manchester University Press

    (Publisher)

  1Why the House of Lords matters

  The United Kingdom has a parliamentary system of government. Government is not elected directly (as in a presidential system), but is chosen through parliamentary elections. A party achieving an absolute majority of seats in the House of Commons is invited to form the government. Political parties seeking to implement their preferred programme of public policy therefore fight to win seats. The chamber of the House of Commons is the arena in which the second-largest party forms an official Opposition and in which it, and other parties, question and challenge government. The chamber provides the Opposition with the opportunity to demonstrate that it is the alternative government, ready to replace the party opposite at the next election. The exchanges between the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition at the weekly Prime Minister's Question Time act as a magnet for the television cameras.

  Given the centrality of the House of Commons to political life in the United Kingdom, it is not unusual to see Parliament and the House of Commons treated as synonymous terms. Commentators will variously say ‘Parliament today is debating …’ when they mean ‘The House of Commons today is debating …’. The focus on the House of Commons is not surprising, but masks the fact that the United Kingdom has a bicameral, that is a two-chamber, legislature. The House of Lords is the second chamber of Parliament.

  As a second chamber, the House of Lords is distinctive for three reasons. The first is the very fact of its existence as a second chamber. Most nations – almost two-thirds – have unicameral, that is single-chamber, legislatures (Massicotte 2001 ). Bicameral legislatures tend to be a feature of federal nations. However, they are also to be found in some unitary, often large nations, such as France, Italy, and the UK. The House of Lords’ second distinctive feature is to be found in its origins and its longevity. As with the House of Commons, there was no specific date on which we can say it came into existence. It has evolved and, as we shall see (Chapter 2 ), has done so over several centuries. The third distinctive feature is that the members of the House are not elected. In this, the House is not unique. Several nations, including Canada, have appointed second chambers (see Russell 2000

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  Policy Making in Britain

  An Introduction

  • Peter Dorey(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • SAGE Publications Ltd

    (Publisher)

  However, it should not be assumed that the relationship between the House of Commons and House of Lords is normally an adversarial one. The vast majority of legislation emanating from the House of Commons is endorsed by the House of Lords, and on those occasions when the Second Chamber does initially inflict a defeat on the government, perhaps over a specific clause in a Bill, a compromise is usually reached, either by virtue of the House of Lords conceding (i.e., abandoning its opposition) if ministers insist on pursuing it, or because ministers agree to remove, rewrite or otherwise amend it to the satisfaction of the Second Chamber.

  In other words, although clashes and stand-offs between the two Houses make good headlines and stories for journalists, the normal relationship is more prosaic, usually entailing a close and constructive partnership over the conduct of parliamentary business. The routine work of the House of Lords is remarkably similar to that of the House of Commons, and in this respect, the Second Chamber generally complements the business of the Commons. Indeed, in many respects, the House of Lords alleviates some of the pressure on the House of Commons; if a Second Chamber did not exist, then (quite apart from a diminution of parliamentary checks and balances) either MPs would become completely overwhelmed and/or a second chamber of some kind would have to be invented de novo.

  It is to the roles and functions that the House of Commons and House of Lords play in the policy process that we now turn our attention.

  LEGISLATION

  As Parliament is a legislature, detailed consideration of proposed laws (Bills) is naturally a major function both of the House of Commons and the House of Lords. There are three types of Bill variously considered by Parliament (especially the House of Commons), namely Public Bills, Private Bills and Private Members’ Bills, each of which will be briefly discussed.

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  British Polity, The, CourseSmart eTextbook

  • Philip Norton(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  The delegated powers committee looks at bills after they are introduced to examine the powers to be delegated to ministers and reports on whether the delegation is appropriate or not: Its recommendations are normally acted on by governments. The House also appoints ad hoc committees for inquiries into different subjects. In recent years, the House has appointed committees to consider the role of regulators, international organizations, and the Barnett formula (see Chapter 9). It has also on occasion formed a joint committee with the Commons to consider issues of common concern. Since 2001, the joint committee on human rights has been a particularly important and high-profile body. The other main function that may be ascribed to the Lords is that of providing a forum for debate of important public issues. A similar function, of course, may be ascribed to the Commons. The difference between the two is that the House of Lords allows somewhat greater scope for the discussion of important topics that are not the subject of contention between parties. Thursdays in particular are given over to general debates (usually two on each Thursday up to the Whitsun recess) and peers initiate debates on a wide range of subjects, usually those on which they have some specialized knowledge. These debates are complemented during the week by the more frequent questions for short debate. Possibly the most significant role played by the House in acting as a forum of debate is as a safety valve. By avoiding replication of the party debate in the Commons, it allows for the occasional public debate on topics that might otherwise not receive an airing in an authoritative public forum. For some outside interests, making their voices heard through such a forum is all that they desire. The House of Lords has achieved a reputation for discussing on occasion important social issues and for helping ease onto the political agenda topics that might otherwise have been kept off

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  Exploring British Politics

  • Mark Garnett, Peter Dorey, Philip Lynch(Authors)
  • 2020(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  In combination, these measures made the House of Lords into a ‘revising’ chamber. Leaders of the House of Lords, like Viscount Whitelaw (1983–88), believed that peers should only persist in their opposition to a bill when some crucial principle was at stake. The role of the Lords, in Whitelaw’s view, was to give the Commons a chance to reconsider legislation which had not been thought through properly. Superficially, this was a modest ambition, but it clearly implied that the Commons could not be relied upon to give adequate scrutiny to Bills. One effect of the 1958 Life Peerages Act had been to make the Lords into something like a retirement home for former ministers, who could bring their accumulated wisdom and experience to bear when the Commons had been overly hasty.

  Supporters of the House of Lords argue that it has performed a valuable role in a liberal democracy, even though few people would have designed it in its existing form. A second chamber provides an additional mechanism of ‘checks-and-balances’ – alongside the formal separation of powers between the legislature, executive, and the judiciary – by making it more difficult for governments to push through radical or reckless legislation too rapidly. Conservatives could also point approvingly to the ‘accumulated wisdom’ which was enshrined in the House of Lords, by virtue of its supposedly illustrious and experienced membership.

  However, the Labour Party has traditionally been more critical of the House of Lords, deeming it undemocratic that a political institution packed with (mostly Conservative) hereditary peers could veto legislation passed by an elected Labour government in the House of Commons. That the House of Lords very rarely invoked this veto did not assuage Labour’s hostility – the potential was always there if a Labour government introduced a law which the hereditary peers strongly objected to. Yet Labour has never been agreed about what to do about the House of Lords, partly because Labour has never developed a coherent theory of ‘the state’ or constitutional reform, and partly because there have been various potential options for reform. Having passed the 1949 Parliament Act, to reduce the House of Lords’ veto from two years to one, the Labour Party subsequently struggled to agree on what to do next. Some of its MPs wanted to further reduce the veto, perhaps to six months, but others argued that the Lords would be more likely to invoke a shorter veto more often; it mostly refrained from using the one-year veto because this a ‘nuclear option’, but a shorter veto might be used more freely and frequently, and thereby cause chaos to the government’s legislative programme and timetable. It was also argued that the veto itself was not really the problem, but who was liable to invoke it – the Conservative hereditary peers. As such, rather than worry about the one-year veto, it was argued that a Labour government should reform the ‘composition’ of the Upper House by removing the hereditaries.

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  Kenneth O. Morgan

  My Histories

  • Kenneth. O. Morgan(Author)
  • 2015(Publication Date)
  • English Language

    (Publisher)

  Chapter Eight Experiences: The House of Lords I HAD SELDOM GIVEN much thought to the House of Lords. Like most people on the left, I saw it as an undemocratic anachronism, consisting almost entirely of people who were there because of the deeds, or commonly the misdeeds, of their ancestors. I well recalled Lloyd George’s denunciation of them as ‘five hundred men chosen at random from amongst the unemployed’. Even with a growing minority of life peers (and the admission of women), they hardly seemed to be a living part of the constitution. I had noted that Lord Addison, leader in the Lords for six years, had favoured an elected House. Then, around the end of October 1999, when I was contemplating how to celebrate the Millennium, I had a phone call out of the blue. It was from Jonathan Powell, Tony Blair’s chief of staff at 10 Downing Street, asking me if I would agree to go to the Lords as a working Labour peer. I was a little stunned, and said that I would think about it and call him back. Then I called David and Katherine to see what they thought; both strongly encouraged me to take it. I would find it interesting and it would give me something significant to do in my retirement; also, it would get me to meet people in London, rather than simply stay at home writing books. I was surprised by their view but, as I began to collect my thoughts, I saw their point. The Lords, whatever I thought about it, was a legislating part of the constitution, which did significant work. The Labour government had just reformed it substantially by getting rid of the hereditary element altogether, save for a small rump of ninety-two chosen from within. I would undoubtedly find the work of interest and, crucially, it could add an important dimension to my history writing. Two days later I went down to the House and talked to the Labour chief whip, a pleasant man called Denis Carter, to enquire about what I was expected to do as a peer

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  Second Chambers

  • Nicholas Baldwin, Donald Shell(Authors)
  • 2013(Publication Date)
  • Routledge

    (Publisher)

  Dealing with Big Brother: Relations with the First Chamber ROGER SCULLY Roger Scully is Lecturer in the Department of International Politics, University of Wales, Aberystwyth DOI: 10.4324/9780203045541-8 Central to the contemporary debate over reform of the House of Lords in the United Kingdom has been not merely the issue of the composition of the second chamber (with discussion focusing around matters like the elimination of the hereditary element and the possibility of a wholly or partly elected house) but also the future relationship of the reformed chamber with the lower house, the House of Commons. It is virtually impossible to think in any sustained way about second chambers without considering the question of inter-cameral relations. How is the second chamber to stand in relation to ‘Big Brother’, the lower house? In its final report, and in response to much debate on the matter, the Wakeham Commission on reform of the British upper house stated its clear view that It should not be the role of the second chamber to substitute its own opinion for that of the House of Commons. The House of Commons should continue to be the pre-eminent Chamber of Parliament and should remain the principal forum for the resolution of political differences. 1 The two issues of the composition of an upper house and the relative powers held by the two chambers are clearly related. The degree to which the first chamber is seen as the house of the people, and its bicameral partner is viewed as having a lesser or even negligible degree of democratic legitimation does have an impact on the structural relationship between the two. 2 Both in terms of formal prerogatives and in the legitimacy believed necessary to wield such powers, the general statement can be made that the closer the degree of equivalence in democratic legitimacy among the two chambers, the closer the equivalence of legislative authority that appears to be enjoyed by the two houses

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  The House of Lords 1911-2011

  A Century of Non-Reform

  • Chris Ballinger(Author)
  • 2014(Publication Date)
  • Hart Publishing

    (Publisher)

  The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute. This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative. The legislative powers of the House of Lords will remain unaltered.

  The system of appointment of life peers to the House of Lords will be reviewed. Our objective will be to ensure that over time party appointees as life peers more accurately reflect the proportion of votes cast at the previous general election. We are committed to maintaining an independent cross-bench presence of life peers. No one political party should seek a majority in the House of Lords.

  A committee of both Houses of Parliament will be appointed to undertake a wide-ranging review of possible further change and then to bring forward proposals for reform.

  We have no plans to replace the monarchy.31

  Unlike in 1945, however, and unlike 1964 – but like 1966 – Labour had an unconditional promise to make a first strike for House of Lords reform. Unlike all previous Labour administrations, New Labour sought first to amend the composition of the Lords, eliminating the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote and therefore moving to end the Conservative predominance in the House, before later considering the powers of the House and, indeed, a longer-term settlement. The House of Lords in 1997 was, however, greatly different from the House that had last faced a Labour government 18 years earlier: it had almost twice as many women members and had modified its working practices and transformed its capacity to scrutinise both government and EU legislation, and had proved itself to be substantially more assertive than in the ‘big sleep’ of 1914–69.32

  PRIORITIES FOR THE FIRST SESSION

  ‘Commitments [by the Labour Party] to reform the House of Lords’, The Times had editorialised in 1990, ‘tend to disappear into the mist soon after election.’33 The new Government’s commitments to constitutional reform were many. The Cook–Maclennan Report had committed the future government ‘to act quickly on devolution: both parties would support legislation to establish the Scottish parliament within the first Session of Parliament after the general election’.34

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