The government’s starting point for this bill is its mantra that those who make the laws of the land should be elected by those to whom those laws apply. Quite right. But the problem for the government is that the House of Lords does not, in fact, make the laws of the land. Yes, it scrutinises legislation. It proposes amendments. It revises. On occasion, it brings forward private members’ bills. But what it does in relation to legislation is united by one overriding characteristic: every single decision on what goes into law in this country is, ultimately, a decision for the House of Commons.
It is because the Commons is elected that it makes the laws; the Lords, which is not, does not. So the government’s central case for election is not made.
This bill attempts to make the House of Lords appear more democratic whilst undermining any way in which its members can operate as democratically-elected representatives of the people. This is dangerous and wrong.
The government is proposing an 80 per cent elected House, arguing that this will make the Lords more legitimate and more democratic. But it would not fully realise either aim. It would be legitimate – but not too legitimate; democratic – but not too democratic.
In this bill, the government has done everything it can to distance the House of Lords from those who will elect them. In one recent interview a senior minister even said that the elected Lords would not be accountable – an extraordinary claim. Those who are elected are given a mandate by electors to represent the political will of the electorate. Elections without accountability are a sham: the appearance of democracy without the reality.
For example, the government has decided that there should be 11 regional constituencies. The elections will be on the basis of proportional representation (in itself flouting the recent referendum decision of the British public). The political parties will draw up lists of candidates, ranking them in order of preference. If a Conservative candidate is high on the South-East list, he or she will be elected; if the Conservative candidate is low on the Scotland list, he or she will not. Simple really. This is appointment by another name.
Meanwhile, this method of election will be a real challenge to Members of the Commons at local level. A local MP will be elected in a constituency of no more than 80,000 voters for a five-year term. The regional senator will be elected in a constituency of several million voters for 15 years. It is clear who will be in a better position to defend and promote the electorate’s interests.
The bill fares no better on defending Commons primacy. It tries to do so by the simple measure of referring to the continuing force of the Parliament Acts. There is no attempt to deal with the self-evident, gaping hole at the heart of the bill: the power of the new senators will be defined only after their election. The government simply ignores the impact of democratic election, not only on the Lords but also on the Commons.
The claim that this bill protects the Commons’ primacy is both unsustainable and undemocratic: unsustainable because neither electors nor elected will abide by the measures it sets out; and undemocratic because it denies to those elected the right to act on behalf of those who elect them.
The government contends that the Lords should be elected, but that the powers and functions of the Lords should remain as they are. There is no country that has two elected chambers yet no written constitution or code to define the powers of the two chambers. Of course, any such code would be justiciable, but maybe that is the price we have to pay if we have two elected Houses. It is perfectly possible to elect the Lords; it is perfectly possible to have two elected Houses of Parliament. In a democracy, there is a strong argument that the whole legislature should be elected. But this bill as it stands does not pass the test of democracy, let alone sustainability.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, has spoken disparagingly of the Lords as having only the “veneer of expertise.” It is clear, though, that his bill has only the veneer of democracy.
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean is a Labour peer