NO ONE outside the House of Lords understands the issues of Lords reform, while those of us who are members of the Lords are interested parties. It is clear that the two main party leaders, Tony Blair and David Cameron, see the issue from a distorted angle; they are almost certain to make a hash of it. But that has been the consistent experience of constitutional reform since 1997. All constitutional reforms are tainted by party interests; they create as many problems as they solve, sometimes more.

The Lords is important for a number of reasons. The House of Commons no longer does its legislative job adequately. Whole chunks of legislation come to the Lords without having had detailed scrutiny in the Commons; the Government itself has to introduce scores of amendments to its own legislation in every session.

The process of scrutiny and revision is very carefully performed by the Lords, with considerable expertise and low partisanship. This is possible because the House has a diverse membership, based on appointment. Most members of the Lords have had some distinction in their own professions. The basic work of legislation is greatly assisted by the cream of the crop of those who have previously been MPs. They have the professional experience.

The old hereditary House of Lords was very reluctant to challenge the elected Commons. Since the hereditary peers were largely removed the House has felt more self-confident and the Government has faced many more defeats on amendments to legislation. That has raised the level of scrutiny, which must be a good thing. The Lords used to have a Conservative majority of hereditary peers; it now has a civil rights majority of appointed peers. We are all liberals nowadays. The Commons has a partisan majority largely controlled by the Government whips. In defence of the liberties of the citizen, the Lords, though less democratic, is incomparably more effective than the Commons. Democracy and liberty are not always the same thing.

The House of Lords would gain more authority if it were elected. Mr Cameron argues that “the Lords must have a significant elected element if it is to play a full and proper role”. There are two problems in this. If the present appointed chamber is replaced by a wholly or largely elected chamber, there is no reason to think that it will retain its virtues of experience and independence.

I do not suppose that the President of the Royal Society, who is an independent peer, would stand for election. Indeed, as an independent peer, he could not accept a party nomination. Nor would the senior politicians be the same; retired Prime Ministers, Chancellors and Foreign Secretaries do often accept nomination to the Lords; I doubt if many of them would choose to contest elections. As a revising chamber, an appointed House is likely to have greater experience and more independence from party pressures than the Commons itself. An elected House would be likely to have less experience and less independence.

The second problem in Mr Cameron’s statement is that the House of Commons does not really want the House of Lords “to play a full and proper role”. When the Lords ceased to be hereditary it started to use its powers with greater confidence. If it is elected, in whole or in part, that confidence will grow further.

We come, then, to the difficulty of choosing the method of election. I assume that this would be more proportional than the House of Commons; it is hard to imagine a “first past the post” system being adopted for the new House. The electoral system might resemble the proportional systems adopted for the European Parliament, or those of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh and Northern Ireland assemblies.

The European Parliament is elected on a list system under the control of the parties. That is a truly horrible method, since it greatly increases the already excessive power of the party machines. They can de-select a list member simply by moving him down the list. This could be remedied by electing peers on something like the Irish system. Yet that would create another absurdity.

If some or all peers were elected by a proportional system, with or without the Irish degree of independence, those peers would actually have greater democratic legitimacy than our MPs. There would then be two conflicting elected Houses, with the Upper House elected on a fairer system. This could be embarrassing in practice. In 2005 the Conservatives would have had a majority of English members in the Upper House, but a minority in the Commons.

It is inevitable that an elected House of Lords will come into conflict with the House of Commons. Any reform should provide for the regulation of this inevitable conflict. Yet Mr Blair — the sorcerer’s ageing apprentice of constitutional reform — wants simultaneously to introduce election and to reduce the powers of the House of Lords. That is foolishness.

The questions are being put in the wrong order. The first question to be answered is: “What is the second chamber for?” Should it be, as it is at present, a revising chamber that accepts the ultimate authority of the House of Commons, or should it be something greater, more like the Senate of the United States. If we opt for a senate, which is an attractive constitutional idea, we shall have to opt for election; but if we do opt for election, a senate is what we shall get.

Mr Cameron, for political reasons of his own, wants to reinforce his liberal credentials; the Prime Minister, who on this point is hopelessly confused, wants to rebuke a House of Lords that has amended his authoritarian legislation in favour of civil liberties. Neither understands that election and powers cannot be separated. An elected House will claim and use greater powers, and cannot be stopped from doing so.

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