House of Lords Reform

What is the House of Lords?

The House of Lords is the second chamber of Parliament and is also called the Upper House. Because it is not elected, it does not have the same powers as the Commons, but it retains the right to revise and scrutinise the Government's actions and legislation.

Its independent minds and extensive expertise form a crucial check on the power of the executive in Parliament but it is much more likely to wield this power by asking Ministers to think again than to veto whole pieces of legislation.

Members of the House of Lords are called Peers. About 700 people have the right to sit in the House of Lords but they do not all derive their right to sit from the same place. Members of the Lords fall into the following categories: Life Peers, the remaining Hereditary Peers, Law Lords (collectively the Lords Temporal) and Church of England bishops (the Lords Spiritual).

As such, it is not a democratic Chamber - its members are either appointed by the patronage of the Prime Minister or are entitled to sit by virtue of their positions.


Background

Historically, the power of the Lords - the representatives of the landed interests - was greater than that of the Commons, but as democratic ideals took root in the UK, its power has gradually been eroded.

The primacy of the Commons was explicitly stated by the Parliament Act 1911, which compelled the Lords to approve financial legislation, and the Parliament Act 1949, which removed the Lords' power of veto over laws.

Today, the debate about reform of the House of Lords refers more to its composition than to its powers. Until the Life Peerage Act 1958, with the exception of the Law Lords and the Bishops, the right to sit in the Lords derived from membership of the hereditary nobility. The 1958 Act introduced a new type of member: the Life Peer. Life Peers may sit in the Lords for life, but their rights are not passed on to their descendents.

Although the growing number of Life Peers diluted the hereditary basis of Lords membership for the next 40 years, the House of Lords Act 1999 all but dissolved it.

The Act removed the rights of all but 92 hereditary peers to sit in the Lords. These peers - who are elected from among the 800 or so entitled to sit before the Act - survive only by virtue of a compromise struck between the Labour Government and the Conservative leader in the Lords of the day, Viscount Cranborne.

This 'Stage 1' reform remains a compromise that the Government is committed to changing by removing the remaining hereditary peers.


Controversies

The principal controversy regarding House of Lords reform revolves around what should replace the hereditary basis of the Second Chamber.

A Royal Commission, led by the former Cabinet Minister Lord Wakeham, put forward a number of options for the future composition of the House, ranging from fully appointed to fully elected, with a series of compromises in between.

The Commons, however, was unable to reach a 'consensus' on any option. The Government then tried to remove the remaining hereditary Peers through its House of Lords Reform Bill, which it described as the first stage of wider reforms, but this was dropped in March 2004 after it became clear that it would not be passed by the House of Lords.

Opponents of a fully appointed Chamber warn that it would put too much power in the hands of those making the appointments, who have historically been Ministers and to a lesser extent Opposition Party leaders, and argued that it would be as undemocratic as the unreformed House. Opponents of a fully elected Chamber warn that the democratic mandate of an elected House would undermine the primacy of the Commons and potentially lead to legislative deadlock. Opponents of a mixed system argue that there is no basic rationale for a mixture.

A number of secondary debates relate to the composition of the House of Lords. The membership of Church of England Bishops, based on the position of the established church, is deemed by some to be anachronistic and discriminatory. The Government committed itself in 2003 to reforming the position of the Law Lords, whose rights to sit in the Lords derives from its position as the highest court of the UK.

Proponents of a reformed House argue variously in favour of the appointment or election of regional representatives or representatives of sectional, community and cultural groups, as a means of improving the representative character of the House while distinguishing it from the Commons. Some, notably the Labour MP Dennis Skinner, continue to argue for its abolition outright.


Statistics

Members of the House of Lords are entitled to claim daily expenses of £124 for overnight accommodation, £62 for day subsistence and £52 for secretarial assistance

The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the rights of 662 hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. 304 of them were Conservatives

Statistic 1: (Source: House of Lords website, 2004); Statistic 2: (Source: Charter88, 1999).


Quotes

"No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage."

Section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999

"We are committed to completing House of Lords reform, including the removal of the remaining hereditary peers, to make it more representative and democratic, while maintaining the House of Commons' traditional primacy."

Labour Party 2001 Election Manifesto, 'Ambitions for Britain'

"I feel extremely concerned. I know that some of them just live for this place and everything it's for, you know, that it does, and that they're suddenly finding themselves without that reason and I am concerned that some of them will just vegetate very quickly or get senile."

Hereditary peer Lord Rowallan, 1999, following the passage of the House of Lords Act