Opinion Peer pressured

The reformation of the House of Lords has been on the agenda for a century now. In 1911,at the end of an epic battle between the House of Commons and the House of Lords,the Lower House won and passed the first Parliament Act. It took away the power of the House of Lords over issues of taxation,budgets and anything involving money. It also removed the power of the Upper House to reject bills passed by the Lower House more than twice. (In 1949,this was reduced to once.) The act also promised in its preamble that this was just a stop-gap measure and a thorough reform of the House of Lords to make it reflect the people’s will would passed soon.

That promise has not been fulfilled. The House of Commons has changed. It has been based on universal adult franchise since 1928,and has women and ethnic minorities as its members. The House of Lords has changed even more,but it is still unelected. In 1911,there were only hereditary peers passing on their seat to the eldest male heir. In 1958,women were allowed to sit and life peers were introduced. But the desire for reform flickered on. As the House of Lords improved in its quality of debate,the reform movement,paradoxically,had a setback. In 1968,Harold Wilson tried to remove the rights of hereditary peers to vote. In the House of Commons,there were those on the left,led by the Labour Party’s Michael Foot,who wanted the Lords to be abolished,and there were those on the right,like Enoch Powell,who wanted no reform. They cynically combined and wasted so much parliamentary time on procedural motions that the government had to abandon the bill.

Fast forward to 1998. Tony Blair partly kept the promise to reform the House of Lords by removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote. But there was a battle. Despite the large majority in the House of Commons,Labour was in a minority in the House of Lords,where there were 750 hereditary lords and only around 500 life peers. So a compromise was agreed on — until a “proper” reform that would lead to an elected House of Lords,around a hundred hereditary peers would be kept back.

The Blair reform package also ensured that no party would have a majority in the House of Lords. In the House,there are the three major parties — the Conservative,Labour and the Liberal Democrats plus cross-benchers who belong to no party. There are around 850 members — roughly 300 each of Labour and Conservative,100 Lib Dems and 150 cross-benchers. There are also 26 bishops of the Church of England.

About five years ago,the House of Commons surprised itself when it voted overwhelmingly to have 80 per cent or 100 per cent elected members in the House of Lords. So in 2010,all the parties made a commitment in their manifestos to have an elected House of Lords,but each still had a lot of caveats.

The House of Lords is overwhelmingly against its reform. (I belong to a minority in favour of reform.) The House of Commons is now different from its previous self after the election,and with a coalition at the helm there are tensions between the two parties. The Liberal Democrats are fiercely committed to reform. The other two parties won’t say it,but they want to make life difficult for the Liberal Democrats. Finally,in June 2012,Clegg introduced the bill to reform the House of Lords.

A draft bill had been published in 2011 and scrutinised by a joint committee of both Houses of Parliament. The draft bill had problems. One was the jealousy of the House of Commons about its primacy over the House of Lords. Would an elected House of Lords — now to be called the senate — challenge the House of Commons? Secondly how would the senators be elected? It was proposed that senators would have a term of 15 years,but no right to shift to the House of Commons later. They were to be elected by proportional representation on a list system for a group of members. There would be 450 members in all,with 360 elected and 90 appointed.

What would be the powers? Why change the system when it works fine? These questions were raised again. To meet the criticism that the new senate will be expensive,the senators won’t be paid salaries but daily allowance as the peers are paid today. (The British public hates to give money to its representatives if it can help it. No lal batti gaadi for anyone,no Lutyens bungalows.)

The question is: Will the bill pass this time? Wait and see. If the House of Commons does pass the bill,the House of Lords will reject it. Will the coalition government assert the rights of the House of Commons to override the veto of the House of Lords by reintroducing the bill one year later and passing it again?

Maybe the champions of the Women’s Reservation Bill,now stuck in the Rajya Sabha,can take heart from this story. A week is a long time in politics,as Harold Wilson said. But a century is a short time when it comes to radical parliamentary reform. Maybe the women’s bill will pass before the next century.

The writer is an economist and Labour peer
express@expressindia.com