• Home
• Why this book?
• The author
• Contents
• Sample chapters
• Author updates
• Textbook web links
• Polity politics resources
• Ordering and inspection
• Feedback
• E-mail Alerting

Author updates

Change and Continuity in British Politics

The House of Lords - A Very British Reform

Writing a book on politics is like aiming at a moving target. Things are forever in flux and, as Harold Wilson memorably said, 'a week is a long time in politics'. During this time the wisdom of the previous week soon becomes old hat. One piece of unfinished business when this book went to press was the reform of the House of Lords. Chapter 12 detailed the lengthy process of reformist activity set in motion by New Labour, concluding with the government's retreat from its white paper proposals and its agreement to establish a joint committee of the two houses to consider the way forward. Was Britain poised at the point of dramatic change - a break with hundreds of years of tradition? This was a constitutional cliff-hanger. What happened next?

With a reforming government, buoyed with an impregnable majority, a charismatic prime minister and the opposition in disarray, there was every reason for students to expect, if not the gunpowder treason and plot of Guy Fawkes, some spectacular constitutional fireworks. Indeed, with only 92 hereditary peers remaining, the job was already half-done and all that was needed was the final coup de grace.

So what has happened? At the end of a long saga the answer has to be 'very little'. This is a sad tale for constitutional reformers but not necessarily so for students. For here we have a case study in a basic theme of British political development, the theme of change and continuity: Britain has moved into the modern era while preserving an astonishing amount from the past. While much value is seen in this (see chapter 2 on the virtues of conservatism and chapter 4 on the evolving nature of the constitution), to critics there is often too little change and too much continuity. Hence the House of Lords reform saga can give us much food for thought.

The story so far

With a lineage going back to the Magnum Concilium, the council assembled by monarchs in Norman times, the House of Lords encapsulates the unbroken link with a distant past - a link in which constitutionalists take considerable pride. However, not all have shared this satisfaction; those described as modernizers have seen this echo of a pre-democratic age as a serious block on progress. Chapter 12 considered the torturous path of Lords reform, a process and a debate dating at least as far back as 1911, with the battle over Lloyd George's Peoples' Budget, if not even further, to November 1648, when Oliver Cromwell abolished the House, along with the monarchy. However, reinstated in 1660, the Lords have managed to survive the stormy seas of encroaching democracy for almost four centuries.

Chapter 12 details some of the curious anomalies that have made the upper house an object of curiosity, amusement or derision. With around 750 hereditary peers reclining on its red leather benches, the chamber appeared to critics variously as a symbol of the country's failure to move with the times, a bastion of ancient and undeserved privilege, a pillar of an anachronistic class system, an inefficient and inept arm of government, and generally an undemocratic blot on the constitutional landscape.

In addition, with the vast majority of the hereditary peers dyed in the deep blue of traditional conservatism, it promised to be an unwelcome brake on a New Labour government committed to a reforming agenda. Action here could be seen as a prerequisite of reform on the wider front. Hence the Blair government was determined to succeed where its predecessors had failed and move the constitutional bulldozers into the Palace of Westminster.

Things began to happen early, with moves to eject the hereditary element. At this stage Tony Blair, fired with the democratic ideals in Labour's manifesto, appeared to favour an entirely elected chamber. However, as chapter 12 recounts, there was no final blueprint for the powers, role or composition of a reformed upper house. New Labour knew what it did not want, but not what it did want.

Their lordships did little to ingratiate themselves with the government when, on 18 November 1998, they inflicted a fifth defeat on the European Elections Bill. There could be little doubt that they would put up a stern fight in any attempt to consign them to the dusty shelves of the constitutional history books. Perhaps some sweetener would be required to encourage the signing of their own collective death warrant.

Hence, unbeknown to the public, and indeed unbeknown to his own party leader, the leader of the Conservative peers, Lord Cranborne, hatched a deal with Tony Blair whereby, rather than total expulsion, 92 hereditary peers would remain for an interim period, during which final plans would be drawn up. Conservative leader William Hague showed his appreciation of Cranborne's efforts by sacking him: he disapproved of the compromise and the secretive manner in which it was negotiated. However, the deal stood. Although the final destination remained unknown, the reform train had left the station. In December 1998 it appeared to reach some unexpected points along the line as Tony Blair entertained second thoughts about a directly elected house, moving more towards one comprising indirectly elected representatives from regional assemblies and a large pool of appointed members. January 1999 saw a white paper promising the final ejection of all the hereditary peers, after the interim period, and a commission was set up under Lord Wakeham to chart the way forward.

In May 1999 the Lords overwhelmingly endorsed the Cranborne deal and the peers set about choosing the 92 through an in-house election. On 6 November 1999, 800 years of tradition came to an unceremonious end as the names of the 92 survivors, now elected after a fashion, were sombrely read out. Peers of ancient lineage began sadly to empty their lockers and bid farewell to each other and to the servants of the House.

Yet in January 2000, when the Wakeham Report surfaced, it aroused a storm of protest with its proposal that, in a chamber of 500, only 100 would be directly elected. There were howls that the reformed house would be populated with a low political life-form: the Tony's crony. The June 2001 general election returned Labour with a second huge majority and in January 2002 the new Leader of the Commons, Robin Cook, unveiled what was intended to be the final stage of reform. While the hereditary peers were to be culled, only 20 per cent of the new house would be elected.

Again the chorus of disapproval made progress seem unlikely. MPs and peers set up a joint committee to consider the white paper, their report calling for 60 per cent to be elected. New Conservative leader Iain Duncan Smith argued for a US-style Senate with 80 per cent elected, but aroused the wrath and scorn of many of his own peers. On 17 January 2002, a survey of Labour backbenchers revealed overwhelming support for an upper house with over 50 per cent elected. Liberal Democrats also leant their weight (increased by the general election), behind the call. However, appearing before a Commons select committee on 24 January, Lord Chancellor Lord Irvine bullishly defended the white paper proposals, declaring that the government was unlikely to change its position. However, on 14 February 2002, Robin Cook added fuel to the controversy in an address to Liberal Democrat MPs, when he dissented from Lord Irvine's view by favouring a higher elected proportion.

The white paper's hostile reception led to a government climbdown, with Robin Cook announcing in May 2002 the establishment of yet another review. A joint committee of MPs and peers would produce further proposals, which would be put to a free vote in both Houses. Although critics welcomed the effective abandonment of the white paper, fears were expressed that the issue had again been 'kicked into the long grass', where it would lie unseen and forgotten.

Now read on

Clearly the reform process had not proceeded as smoothly as the early reformist rhetoric and government's huge majority had promised. The reform train had encountered snow of the constitutional kind, some undemocratic leaves were beginning to gather on the line and a complex system of points was changing its direction from one month to the next. Even so, the light at the end of the tunnel was perhaps dimly visible.

However, by now the Prime Minister had developed a new zeal for an entirely non-elected upper house, and he appeared increasingly to be at the controls. The new committee would be chaired by Jack Cunningham, a Blair loyalist who had briefly held the ill-defined role of 'Cabinet Office fixer'. Was his job to fix the upper house? Moreover, September 2002 saw the emergence of a cross-party group of MPs and peers intent on blocking any plans for a elected house.

Cunningham's committee was composed of members with varying views on the issue, and in the event it came forward with not one, but seven proposals, ranging between the two extremes of 100 per cent elected and 100 per cent appointed.

As the time to choose drew near, heated argument on the seven possibilities took place. Robin Cook stressed the need to make progress and bring down the curtain on 'the longest political indecision in our history'. He had become a fervent advocate of an elected chamber and crossed swords with a number of leading Labour figures. In the Commons debate of 22 January 2003, MPs appeared to favour a hybrid composition with a majority of elected members. In a two-day Lords debate, peers inclined in the opposite direction, favouring a majority of members being appointed. Derry Irvine backed a wholly appointed chamber, as did Tony Blair. Both held that a hybrid house would cause conflict within the chamber between the two types of member. Disenchanted modernizers argued that the Prime Minister was unduly influenced by his Lord Chancellor in accepting a major deviation from the party's manifesto commitment to a democratic upper house. The debate placed Blair and Cook in open conflict, with the latter appearing to mock the Prime Minister in the Commons as he openly scoffed at his arguments. Some thought Cook to be on the point of resigning and in a state of 'demob' euphoria.

Of course one reason for the failure to find agreement was that there are sound arguments both for and against election and appointment; these are set out in chapter 12.

The free vote took place on 4 February 2003. The first result to be known came from the Lords, where peers voted by 335 to 110 for an all-appointed chamber, while turning down all other options. However, in the Commons, every one of the seven options was rejected. The Prime Minister's preference for a fully appointed house was decisively rebuffed by 323 votes to 245, while a wholly elected chamber was more narrowly rejected by 289 votes to 272. The 60 per cent elected option was defeated by 316 votes to 253, and the narrowest verdict came in the rejection by 284 votes to 281 of an 80 per cent elected chamber. Other options were rejected without a division. The most radical reformers were also to be disappointed when a motion by a veteran left-winger, Dennis Skinner, for the complete abolition of the upper house was rejected by 390 votes to 172.

Clearly this issue generated heightened feelings and, although it had been a free vote, there were allegations that junior ministers were leant upon by the whips to support the Blair preference. Most members of the cabinet supported Blair, who flew home from an EU summit in Le Touquet to cast his vote. Even so, in addition to Robin Cook, some 24 ministers failed to follow their leader; the renegades included Charles Clark, David Miliband, Patricia Hewitt, Peter Hain, Harriet Harman, Margaret Hodge, Dennis MacShane, Stephen Twigg and Mike O'Brien. Gordon Brown, the man rumoured to nurse a brooding grudge against his Downing Street neighbour, refrained from entering the division lobbies at all. It was alleged that some 20 Conservative MPs, believed to favour an elected house, deliberately withheld support, preferring to embarrass the Prime Minister than reform the constitution. The constitutional reform pressure group, Charter88, proclaimed it 'a bad day for democracy'.

At the end of a day marked by bathos rather than revolution, Robin Cook concealed his disappointment, advising members to 'go home and sleep' on the day's events. Once again the upper house had defied the constitutional architects. Once again the British constitution had shown more elements of continuity than of change. Jack Cunningham, chairman of the joint committee on reform, may have captured the political reality when he said:

'All experience, for the last 100 years, shows that incremental reform is the way to do it. The big bang theory won't work' (Guardian, 27 February 2003).

So after all there has been no change beyond the ejection of some of the hereditary peers (many of whom were only 'backwoodsmen' who rarely attended). Has the sound and fury signified nothing? The general view is that the issue will remain dormant until a further general election. Yet this is unlikely to bring in a government with the youth and vigour of the Blair class of '97. Those believing the issue to have been kicked into the long grass can perhaps utter that old taunt, 'We told you so'.