This week, MPs and peers from across the political spectrum announced plans to form a new all-party parliamentary group on ‘wholesale’ Lords reform. The trigger was the very real sight of unelected peers using obscure procedures to block legislation, and the continuing fallout from the Peter Mandelson affair.
With members from all the main parties, and both the house of Lord and the Commons, the group will be co-chaired by Labour’s Simon Opher MP and the Conservative’s Kit Malthouse MP. Kit Malthouse said “When arcane procedures can be used to defy the will not only of the elected chamber, but also the clearly expressed views of a large majority of the public, it is a crisis confronting our democracy that can’t be ignored.”
The House of Lords is a chamber without consequences
The Mandelson case exposes a problem that has long been hiding in plain sight. As we revealed last week, even when a peer resigns the House, they do not lose the trappings of their title. At present, the only way for a peer to lose their lofty stylings is an act of parliament.
Peers who bring parliament into disrepute can simply step back, while continuing to benefit from the status that comes with a title.
That is why so many cases end in quiet resignation, rather than meaningful consequence. No longer attending the House for parliamentary business, they have more time to focus on their own business interests. “Need a Lord on the board?” as Mandelson asked of Epstein in one email. Public office is treated less like a position of trust, and more like a private members club.
Powerful peers without a public mandate
It’s not just individual bad behaviour that has inspired the new group to form. The House of Lords is meant to revise and scrutinise legislation. It is not meant to veto the will of the Commons through procedural games. Yet, in recent months, several government bills have been facing extended scrutiny in the House of Lords. While careful examination of legislation is an important part of parliamentary work, some of these delays look to campaigners less like careful scrutiny and more like deliberate obstruction.
Peers have also been in the headlines in the past few months for their interventions and amendments to hugely significant legislation such as the government’s Employment Rights Bill and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.
We don’t have a view on whether the House of Lords is doing the right thing in delaying these bills. But we firmly think that the public should be able to hold legislators accountable for their decisions. They have even been holding up their own reform in the two-page House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.
The limits of voluntary standards
Rather than public accountability, we have a system based on trust and goodwill.
Appointments are scrutinised by a commission that exists by convention, not statute – and can simply be ignored. Behaviour is regulated by fellow peers who punish breaches by barring miscreants from the chamber, and the subsidised bars and restaurants. Resignations are voluntary. Sanctions are rare. This creates a system where the rules look firm, but feel optional.
When standards depend on people choosing to follow them, they stop being standards at all.
Lords should be held accountable by the British public
It should be no surprise that members of the House of Lords act as they please. At the moment, the House of Lords combines significant influence with weak accountability. Most members are appointed by the Prime Minister. They serve for life. And removing peers is harder than it should ever be.
If we want a second chamber that focuses on the job in hand, not the one they might get in future, they need to know that they will be held accountable by the public for their decisions. We need regular elections, so the public are in the driving seat. Anything less invites repeat crises.
So, it’s good to see the formation of this APPG, as the government need to realise how important their commitments to House of Lords reform are.
The question is no longer whether reform is needed. It is whether parliament is willing to move beyond half-measures and voluntary restraint. The fact that the House of Lords is dragging their heels on the simple and popular removal of the remaining hereditary peers, makes the case for why the government can’t allow them to win.
Add your name to our call for an elected House of Lords
Add your name