3 September 2015
Oh Lord
by J.R. Thomas
“Whom the Gods wish to destroy, they first make mad”. If this applies to institutions, then maybe it explains what is going on with the House of Lords.
Britain’s second parliamentary chamber is now the second largest in the world, with 882 members, surpassed only by that of the People’s Republic of China. One suspects that even the Chinese government would refrain from such open cronyism as seems now to be the guiding principle for selection for a place in their Lordships House.
It would be naïve in the extreme of course to assume that many persons were ever chosen for membership of the Upper House on merit, or at least, purely on merit. Until 1958 any man (and it nearly always was a man) elevated to the lords was sent there with an hereditary peerage, which meant that not only he but his most senior direct male (nearly always, only males could inherit) descendants got the seat on the previous holders death. That might not have brought great intellect and skills to the Lords, but it did give independence and a range of interests and even of backgrounds. Decaying fortunes meant that peers could come from unexpected professions and places.
The latest honours list merely continues a very long established practice of placating two demands incumbent on any politician – or, going back a bit, monarch; how to control the upper house of parliament, and also how to compensate your loyal supporters when the time comes to get rid of them. It is extraordinary how a title, and a membership of a very desirable club, will buy-off the most grumpy of deposed former ministers, and turn them into loyal voters. Of course, when peerages were hereditary, it did not do to create too many, as the fact that the first Earl or Viscount was a loyal Whig did not mean that his descendants would be. Asquith and Lloyd George came near to breaching that sensible rule of thumb when they obtained Edward’s VII’s reluctant agreement, and only as a final measure, to pack the Lords with Liberal peers to ensure the passage of the 1910 Finance Bill. But it was MacMillan who opened the floodgates, in 1958, by creating a new class of peer, the life peer, the peerage and seat being confined to only the first holder. From then on patronage became much easier, and each successive government has pushed as many supporters as it reasonably could into the Lords.
The result has been the bloated house which we have now. There have been endless calls throughout the twentieth century to reform the Lords. Tony Blair more or less achieved one objective of the reformers by cutting the number of hereditary peers to 92 (from around 900) who are elected by ballot among themselves – the only elective element of the house, somewhat bizarrely. But nobody has yet grasped the much thornier problem of how the other members should be chosen. In opposition, the political parties cry – well, mutter – for the introduction of some elective procedure. But nobody means it. The power of patronage is too useful; and the challenge of an upper elected house to the House of Commons does not bear thinking about – not if you are a member of the House of Commons, anyway.
So nothing gets done. The House of Lords has so many members that there is space to sit only two thirds of them, and of course, the average age of members gets greater and greater, there being no retirement process except the decision of the member themselves to go. (Although it is noticeable that a lot of the detailed work of the house, and the most thoughtful contributions to debate, tend to come from older members.)
What is perhaps more alarming still, to those who care about the efficient government of the United Kingdom, is that the new creations tend to be increasingly as a reward for services to the ruling party. The convention is that the opposition parties also get a (lesser) number of nominations, but they too tend to be handed out as compensation for loss of service or office. Ministerial careers tend to end by transmutation to the Lords, and the composition of the house has changed a great deal from when the majority of peers were either hereditary – enough of them young and ambitious to make political careers in the Lords – or were MP’s sent upstairs after having perhaps lost marginal seats but still happy to play a legislative role.
With the torrents of legislation since the Second World War, the Lords became the great checker and reviser of the bills sent up from the Commons, a job the Commons, even with the committee system, just did not have the time to do. It was rare for the Lords to oppose proposals passed by the Commons. But it would, in a less fevered atmosphere and with more time, polish and improve legislation, so that it could be sent back to the Commons in a form that would actually work. That remains a key role of their Lordship’s House, but with the work involved tending to fall on fewer shoulders, even as the red benches become more and more crowded with members, who may or may not turn up; and, if they do turn up, tend to want to make speeches.
Now Mr Cameron, normally pretty sure footed, seems to have mis-stepped. He has created 45 new peers, 24 of them Conservatives. A further seven proposals failed to get past quality and probity tests. Not that Cameron had much choice. Thirteen years of Blairite and Brownite patronage, and then the necessity of buying continuing goodwill from the Liberals in coalition, had resulted in a Lords Chamber where the Conservatives were in a considerable minority. As in the other place, this did not matter too much when there was a coalition with a majority in both houses but now it could become a considerable impediment for a Tory government governing alone. Asquith must be giggling somewhere at the thought of a Conservative government in danger of having its legislative programme held up by the House of Lords. But Cameron has effectively done what Asquith did not have to do – he has created enough Tory loyalist peers to give him effective control of the Lords.
Even loyal Conservative commentators have been struck by the lack of thought that seems to have gone into Mr Cameron’s list. Like Harold Wilson’s lavender list (supposedly drawn up by his secretary on that colour notepaper) it seems to be a list of Mr Cameron’s friends. Of course, as Charles Moore has pointed out in The Telegraph, any Prime Minister will wish to reward close advisors and supporters, but, one might think, up to a point. There seems to be very little effort to populate what, after all, is an important and dignified chamber of Parliament, with distinguished persons who might bring either intellect or skill, or even joy. No great actors, musicians, businesspersons, scientists, academics, even members of the fourth estate. The picture is no better from the Labour and Liberal lists; it is a pretty dismal cast of additions.
It may well be that politicians forget that this sort of behaviour does not do them any good in the public eye. The Tory list is stuffed with special advisors, former ministers, an MP who was deselected by her local constituency! One that has caused especial ire is the addition of Douglas Hogg, he of the alleged moat in the Commons expenses scandals. There is actually good reason to put him there – firstly, he is in his private life the 3rd Viscount Hailsham and, before the Blair reforms, would have been there anyway, secondly, he is a not undistinguished lawyer and dedicated Parliamentarian, the very sort of member which the Lords might benefit from. But in the circumstances perhaps not a wise addition to the ranks politically.
The Prime Minister, word has it, is somewhat taken back by the reaction to these noble creations. If so, that might have alerted him to the possible mileage for a Tory looking to keep the mantle of a reformist, in coming up with a serious reform of the Lords. It would steal the thunder of the opposition, whoever might lead it, and it cannot be too difficult to come up with a workable solution. Most democratic legislatures have second chambers and they tend to work. The trick is probably just to avoid the Chinese model.
