Cowardly politicians make bad decisions. Last week Labour MPs voted for a
fully elected House of Lords because they fear being punished for the cash
for peerages scandal. They want to present you with visible evidence that
they have cleaned up the system that allowed Tony Blair to reward the
party’s donors.
The Tories are afraid that if they do not advocate a fully democratic second
chamber you will doubt whether David Cameron has really modernised them.
Neither party has considered for a moment whether the change would produce a
better legislature.
The watchword that pusillanimous MPs use to disguise their fear is
“legitimacy”. The Lords will lack it unless the public chooses its members,
they say. That view should be challenged. Is the chief executive of BP or
the astronomer royal or the chief constable of Merseyside illegitimate
because not elected? Legitimacy can be conferred through different
procedures. The fact that the office holder is qualified and suitable
normally helps to confirm that legitimacy. It is only in democratic
elections that qualifications and suitability need play no part whatsoever.
This government has vastly increased the number of bodies — quangos,
commissions and committees — that are not elected but nonetheless decide
things that affect our lives. I do not approve of many of them, but it would
be absurd to argue that all influential people must be elected.
You might say that the Lords is a special case: we must be given the vote
because it makes laws. On the contrary, it is the Commons that is a special
case for that reason. The Lords is but a revising chamber. In the end the
Commons can always have its way, and so we should choose for the Lords
whatever system will help us most to enjoy wise government. To parrot that
it must be democratic is to substitute sloganeering for reason.
The Lords is criticised only for how its members are appointed. Few attack it
for the way it does its job. In a chamber where attendance is voluntary,
large numbers turn out dutifully to debate and vote on the big issues.
Rarely does the house lack the expertise to debate the topic of the day.
Indeed, frequently it can call on preeminent experts in whatever field.
Although many lords are party nominees, collectively the chamber eschews
partisanship, at least by comparison with the Commons. With good numbers
representing the smaller parties and large numbers of crossbenchers, the
government of the day has no majority. It must persuade to get its way.
Frequently, their lordships are unconvinced and send back a substantial
proportion of bills.
The cash for peerages debacle blinds us to another important truth. Not only
is the chamber functioning well, but we are also close to an acceptable
system for selecting peers.
Labour has already improved the Lords by expelling most of the hereditary
peers. Although many gave good service, their presence guaranteed the Tories
a majority and that was indefensible. In any case, an inherited title is not
a good reason to be appointed because it tells us nothing about the
individual’s merits (even if we overlook that issue in the monarchy’s case
because a royal family provides us with a nonpartisan head of state). It is
widely accepted that the remaining hereditary peers should wither on the
vine or be phased out, and there is no good reason why in future we should
appoint any man just because he is a bishop.
Most of the honours system operates without controversy. Perhaps it used to be
too snobbish but now, thanks to successive governments, the teachers, social
workers and long-serving cleaners get a look-in. Diligent civil servants
assess nominations for lesser honours purely on their merits. Britain has
always been good at administration that is beyond reproach. We have not
really descended to Third World levels of corruption, at least not below
cabinet level.
There is no reason why the same commendable standard could not be applied to
higher honours, too. We just need transparency and no involvement from
politicians. The prototype already exists. The House of Lords Appointments
Commission vets candidates and does it rather well. Certainly it stood up to
Blair by vetoing four of his nominees who had lent his party huge sums in
the very recent past.
This government also instigated “people’s peers”. It is good that the public
should be able to nominate candidates. In practice the system may have been
hijacked by a few who are both self-aggrandising and well organised. The
commission could be tougher with those who nominate themselves, but
elections would sweep in more such vain creatures, not fewer.
There’s the rub. We know that an elected House of Lords would attract types
like those in the Commons, at a time when the Commons commands little
respect. It is filled with careerists who spout the party soundbites. When
it comes to voting they can be intimidated because they seek patronage. Most
of all they fear that if they do not toe the line, the whips will make
trouble in their constituencies and, in extremis, have them deselected.
Some plans for Lords reform attempt to deal with that objection, for example,
by imposing a maximum period of service of 15 years. Still, that means we
would have to wait two whole parliaments before the first cohort of elected
peers became immune to the whips’ pressures. But if the limit on service
were to be less, peers could never become thoroughly experienced in their
work.
The few brave MPs who act independently have a chance of keeping the support
of their electors and, if they do, can maintain their defiance. But it is
highly unlikely that the Lords would be elected in the same way.
The reasons are contradictory. First, MPs would want to deny peers the special
legitimacy of being the exclusive representative of a constituency. But
second, the first-past-the-post electoral system that creates that direct
relationship between electors and their representative is derided because it
does not produce proportional representation. So for both reasons the Lords
would have to be chosen by PR.
It could then claim greater legitimacy than the Commons. MPs realise that, and
so achieving a majority for a detailed Lords reform bill will be much more
difficult than it was last week to approve change as a broad concept without
specifics.
Those members of the European, Scottish and Welsh legislatures who are already
elected from a list are entirely at the mercy of their party. The system
enables leaders to guarantee that their favourite apparatchiks will be
elected, since those who head the list are a shoo-in. It is appointment by
another name. Indeed, if the Lords were in future to be chosen on that
basis, the parties could sell the top places on their lists to generous
donors. Isn’t this where we came in?
Of course, if we were a new country setting up our first constitution we would
opt for two houses, both elected, and we would find a way to differentiate
the status and powers of one from those of the other, as the Americans do.
But democracy is scarcely a novelty for us. With so much experience of how
it really functions we should be prepared to reflect on its shortcomings as
well as its merits. Given that in today’s House of Lords we have something
that works in practice (very nearly, anyway), why sacrifice it because it
fails to satisfy a narrow and modish theory of legitimacy?
The chances of Lords reform are still mercifully slim. The Commons will not
vote for something more democratic than itself, and a hybrid chamber of
elected and appointed peers would divide farcically into first and
second-class members.
The debate needs some prime ministerial grip. Blair is on the way out and
Gordon Brown has not yet opined. Brown should be cautious. Because when he
takes over, he will routinely use Scottish MPs to push through legislation
that affects the English but leaves the Scots, including his own electors,
unaffected. For Brown, “legitimacy” may not be the happiest of all possible
slogans.
michael.portillo@sunday-times.co.uk
