For main article see: Lords Reform

Prior to 1997 the House of Lords had a massive inbuilt conservative majority. During the 1975-76 session of the previous labour government the Lords had inflicted 126 defeats, the greatest on any administration. In its 1997 election manifesto the labour party promised that:

"The House of Lords must be reformed - the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute .

The Royal Commission's key recommendations expressed the need for a more democratic chamber as:

...It should be broadly representative of society in the United Kingdom at the beginning of the 21st century. ... It should give the United Kingdom's constituent nations and regions, for the first time, a formally constituted voice in the Westminster Parliament." (Recommendation 1)

The Government is pledged in its Manifesto to complete reform of the Lords to remove the hereditary element entirely and to reconstitute the House on a modern representative basis. ^[1]

The Governments Priniciples for Reform (White Paper)

The House of Lords should be ^[1]:

• A revising and deliberative assembly complementing the work of the Commons - not seeking to usurp the role of the House of Commons as the pre-eminent chamber;
• Composed of a membership distinctive from that of the Commons appropriate to its revising and deliberative functions, and not duplicate or clone the Commons; They should have experience and expertise to contribute and be attractive to those who are not full time politicians.
• Although political in approach, there should be an independent element and should not dominated by any one political party.
• More representative than the current Chamber of the nation as a whole, though not
• Representative of independent expertise and of the broader community in the UK - but not so as to disrupt the relationship between elected members of the Commons and their constituents.

In the white paper the most important changes proposed were: ^[1]:

• The hereditary peers will finally cease to have any privileged rights of membership;
• A majority of the members of the new House will be nominated by the political parties, in proportions intended to reflect the shares of the national vote in the previous General Election. There will also be about 120 appointed members with no political affiliation, 120 directly elected members to represent the nations and regions, and a continuing role for Law Lords and Bishops of the Church of England;
• An independent statutory Appointments Commission will have substantial powers. It will appoint the independent members and decide - within certain bounds - how many seats each major political party is entitled to, thereby substantially reducing Government patronage;
• The size of the House will be capped at 600 in statute, with an interim House as close as may be to 750 members to accommodate existing life peers;
• There will be formal commitments to achieving balance and representativeness in the House;
• The link with the peerage will be dissolved.

Nominated members

Best suited to securing a properly representative membership able to fulfil the functions of the second chamber, whilst complementing and not usurping the Commons.

The government rejected the idea that only direct elections can provide legitimacy for the second chamber. Only a minorities of democratic governments have an elected second chamber.

The limited, subordinate powers of the second Chamber do not require it to be elected and if selected on the same basis as the first chamber it would inevitably challenge the primacy of the Commons. "We would be strongly opposed to a situation in which the two House of Parliament had equivalent electoral legitimacy.

An fully elected chamber would mean the independent members would virtually disappear.

Elected politics is increasingly a full time occupation. Such a commitment would risk loosing the expertise and experience of those members "who are leaders in a wide range of national endeavours".

The larger the elected element, the greater the number from each geographical area, and inevitably they will be in competition with MPs and undermine their representative role.

One alternative suggestion is to adopt a form of indirect election under which elected sub-national government would appoint members.

Regional Representation

The Government accepted the Royal Commission's recommendation that there should be a minority elected element of regional members representing the nations and regions of the UK. Of the three options given (65, 87 & 195 members) the government favoured 120 members chosen from the regions in a slightly larger House than envisaged by the Commission.

Government proposed regional members should be selected by the same form of regional list in the same multi-member constituencies, at the same time as the European Parliament. However it did not discount electing regional members at the time as the general election or local councils.

Term of membership

Although stating its preference for a "the shorter option in each case", the government sought views on the length of appointment or election which had been suggested by the commission at 5,10 or 15 years whilst appointment for life with a fixed retirement age was also mentioned.

The government were aware of the argument for a longer term for those appointed

Other issues

The commission proposed that there should be no provision for re-election because the need to regularly seek a party mandate might undermine the independence of members. The government did not propose to bar re-election, and wished to allow re-appointment of members.

Vacancies should be filled by next person on the list.

Independent members

Fully endorsed Royal Commission's belief in the value of non-political members, due to their "different perspective and expertise ... particularly valuable to a second chamber with the revising, scrutinising and deliberative role of the Lords". It endorsed the Commission's suggestion of a reduction of some 24-30 members to around 120 independent members in a 600 member Chamber. These 20% were to be appointed by the Appointments Commission.

Summary of Numbers

120 non-party poltical, 120 directly elected, 16 Bishops, at least 12 law Lords and a balance of 332 nominated party political members where the number for each main party was determined by the Appointments Commission.

Appointments Commission

It will determine the size and political balance of the House.

It would carry out proprietory checks & if necessary a veto on those appointed by political parties . The minimum threshold for a party to have a right to representation was intended to be a vote of 5% of the electorate

Using an "open and transparent procedure" it would appoint some of the 120 independent members thus "removing a further source of Government patronage". However the government intended to retain the right of the Prime Minister to appoint some 4 or 5 members each parliament.

Conditions of membership

Membership to cease to be connected with the the awarding of honours. In future the government proposed that members would not become Peers.

Judicial Members

As of 2001 the House of Lords had 28 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary colloquially known as Law Lords and this position continued for life after a person ceased to carry out a formal judicial funciton. The Government proposed having a maximum age of 75.

Religious representation

Recognising that "religious representation helps in the recognition of the part that moral, philosophical and theological considerations have to play in debating political and social issues", the government agreed with the Commission that the Church of England should continue to be represented in the House. For practical reasons, it did not support formal representation of other faiths as proposed by the Commission, but believed that leaders of other denominations and faiths should be appointed by the Appointments Commission.

Payment

As of 2001 Lords were entitled to a daily subsistence expenses of £60; travel costs; a £51 secretarial allowence per day of attendance and accomodation for non London based peers. The government did not itself favour a move to a formal payment of salaries, but recognised this could cause problems so was "open to views".

Size of House

In 2001 the size of the House was around 700. The Commission proposed a target of 550, the government favoured 600.

The Government said it was particularly interested in views on the following questions:

• The overall balance between elected, nominated and ex officio (Law Lords and Bishops), and the balance between political and independent members.
• Whether elections for regional members should be linked to elections to the European Parliament, or should they be held at the same time as elections to the House of Commons.
• The length of time (5, 10 or 15 years) that regional members are elected.
• The length of service of appointed members (again 5, 10 or 15 years)
• Rules for disqualifying members, whether temporarily unfit for membership, by e.g. Mental Health or by bring the House into disrepute.
• Remuneration of members and whether the rules for elected and nominated members needed to be the same.

Labour supports modernisation of the House of Lords' procedures to improve its effectiveness. ^[2]

In November 2001 the government requested submission saying:

All these elements are consistent with the Government's electoral mandate. ^[3]

They did however have a number of areas where "the Government would welcome views" on the way to achieve a more democratic house including:

• The overall balance between, elected, nominated and ex officio members, and the balance between political and independent members;
• Whether elections to the Lords should be linked to General Elections, those for the European Parliament, or over time linked to those from devolved and regional bodies within the UK;

The result was an unprecented response with some 1101 proposals covering a vast range of views on how & whether it is necessary to achieve a more democratic House of Lords. In particular these views expressed a number of divergent views on democracy.

A large number of consultees were of the opinion that any form of appointed chamber would be undemocratic:

"In a democracy, I find it offensive that we can have a chamber of the paliament substantially nominated or appointed. Powers of patronage are an affront to democracy and I have little confidence in an independant panel given our experience of the so-called "people's peers" who are indistinguishable form those appointed through political patronage. Accountability is an essential element of a democratic sociaty and the ability of the ruled to remove their rulers (John Austin MP)

It should be driven by the aim to be more accessible and less elitist. It should encourage greater participation in democracy, rather than undermine it. ( Harold Best MP)

I find the White Paper proposals on House of Lords reform thoroughly inadequate and anti-democratic (i.e. not of the people). If they were enacted as they stand we would have in the second chamber a majority of people who were unaccountable, unelected and unrepresentative of the people on whose behalf they claim to act. The White paper Proposals amount to very little, if any, real change to the social, economic and political interests that currently exist in the House of Lords and would in reality lead to a continuity in the exercise of power by the established interests.

The second chamber must derive its democratic legitimacy from the electoral accountability of the majority of members. (Peter Bradley MP)

A significant divide between proposals stems from their different interpretations of the meaning of democracy. Democracy as a term has been applied to many different, even contradictory forms of government since it was first coined sometime in the 5th century BC. This has given rise to many widely different views on its meaning.

One group of proposals draw their inspiration from the original Athenian model for democracy. One of the earliest writers to describe this model was Herodotus and he sets three tests for the system of government that he also called both isonomia (equality of political rights):

The rule of the people has the fairest name of all, equality, and does none of the things that a monarch does. The lot determines offices, power is held accountable, and deliberation is conducted in public. ( Herodotus quoting Otanes c492BC)

We can see from this three tests for democracy:

1. A democracy requires that offices are selected by allotment or ballot (now used mainly for selection of Juries in the Anglo-Saxon legal systems).
2. At the end of their allotment Athenian officials were required to account for their actions in office before the people.
3. Discussion about government was conducted in public by ordinary citizens.

Greeks writers commentating on Greek Democracy never use democracy to mean an elected system of government:

Democracy is a form of government in which the offices are distributed by the people among themselves by lot; ( Aristotle, Rhetoric)

it is thought to be democratic for the offices to be assigned by lot ( Aristotle, Politics 4.1294b)

Solon, ... liberated the people from slavery and restored the ancestral democracy with a skilful blending of the constitution: the Council on the Areopagus being an oligarchic element, the elective magistracies aristocratic and the law-courts democratic. ( Aristotle, Politics 2.1273b)

And a democracy, I suppose, comes into being when the poor, winning the victory, put to death some of the other party, drive out others, and grant the rest of the citizens an equal share in both citizenship and offices--and for the most part these offices are assigned by lot. ( Plato, Republic 8.557)

by making the law-court, which was elected by lot, all-powerful … as the law-court grew strong, men courted favour with the people as with a tyrant, and so brought the constitution to the present democracy. ( Aristotle, Politics 2.1274a, c350BC)

And it is interesting to note that according to figures from Mogens Herman Hansen, at the time of Desmosthenes approximately 90% of all magistrates were allotted. The notable exception being the strategoi (generals) who were elected.

Most proposals were based on a more modern interpretation of the meaning of democracy which is an evolution of the Greek concept.

Democracy as a concept first entered the English language in the 16th century when political writers started using it to describe the Greek style of government:

An other publique weale was amonge the Atheniensis, where equalitie was of astate amonge the people...This maner of gouernaunce was called in greke Democratia, in latine, Popularis potentia, in englisshe the rule of the comminaltie.

(Elyot Gov. 1531)

Although the American and French revolutions are often described by modern writers as democratic, at the time their founders called them republics as they were based on the Roman republican form of government with elected assemblies and not on the Greek democratic system. Almost all of the US founding fathers who mention democracy use it in a derogatory sense for a type of "popular" goverment:

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!

(Benjamin Franklin)

In the first dictionary definition of 1828, although democracy was not seen as a form of allotment it was still inextricably seen as the form of Government in Ancient Athens:

Government by the people; a form of government, in which the supreme power is lodged in the hands of the people collectively, or in which the people exercise the power of legislation. Such was the government of Athens.

(Noah Webster's American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828)

It was not until the working class movements of the late 18th and 19th century that we find the beginning of a mass pro-democracy movement with many organisations including the American democratic party incorporating the term in their names. One of the main demands of these movements was for fairer more democratic elections through universal franchise. It was not until the 1930s that people like Woodrow Wilson began to use "democracy" as a generic terms for countries with Universal franchise.

Everything for which America fought has been accomplished. It will now be our fortunate duty to assist by example, by sober friendly counsel, and by material aid, in the establishment of just democracy throughout the world.

With the advent of the cold war, democracy became a disputed term between the communists East which understood it as a term for equality of class and the capitalist West where "free" elections were characteristic of their governments.

Most consultation responses were based on this more modern popular view of democracy.

This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations. Statements consisting only of original research should be removed. ( Learn how and when to remove this message)

Unlike the primary chamber, an upper chamber (with a revising role) has no need for an electoral mandate, indeed a mandate can be seen as possitively harmful as it would be in conflict the primary chamber.

The usual definition of democracy is normally applied to "democratic government", as the upper chamber is not a government there is therefore some debate how it should be applied and a large range of views were expressed on this issue in the House of Lords consultation. The following is a summary of some of these views:

Democratic may mean a body whose members match the statistical profile of the general population of voters, in terms of age, sex, and politicial pursuasion. If taken literally however, it would suggest that as less than 2% of the UK have any membership of a political party then an upper chamber ought to aim to have a similar percentage.

For those wishing some form of meritocracy which selects better candidates, there is also an obvious conflict because those selection will clearly be better than average.

It is a compelling argument to say that democratic means "freely chosen by the people".

Unfortunately this only raises another question of how what we mean by "free choice". A slave free to choose between two masters could in some sense be said to have a free choice, but most people would not consider them free. When elections are very heavily dependant on the support of a party election machines, many maintain that it is impossible for someone outside a political party to get elected. Therefore they say that party political electorate really don't give the voters a free choice as only candidates backed by a party have a real chance of success.

Another suggested meaning of democratic takes the form of a form of selection in which the person chosen is answerable to the public in some way. In the original democracies this was achieved by an examination of each person at the end of their term of allotment. The UK doesn't have any concept of examining politicians at the end of their term. The nearest we have is the idea that politicians will be answerable when (or if) they stand for re-election.

Of course, parties as long term political institutions are always answerable to the public at the next election.

There is no justification for the establishment of one particular religion or denomination. I consider the disestablishment of the Church a fundamental part of this reform process (Harold Best MP)

I find the idea of political neutrality interesting, in practice I find theat the term says more about the neutering of political activity than a neutral position and that again is relevant to the exercise of power.(Harold Best MP)

There may be no better way for the public to choose the directio of its government than for several parties to present to them their manifestos for government. By voting for the party, the public mandate the party to form a government. This process is a democratic way for the public to select their government.

But, an upper revising house, is not a government. The very party system that gives the public a democratic choice in the main chamber, is counterproductive in the upper house. Parties fight and win on their manifestos or their leadership, a manifesto is a commitment to move in a particular direction, a leader is someone who takes us their. If both the upper and lower houses are given mandates through an election, they have conflicting instructions.

Category:Lords Reform