The future of the House of Lords

Like many countries, the United Kingdom has a bicameral parliament, meaning that is has two chambers.  The lower chamber is the wholly elected House of Commons, while the upper chamber - the House of Lords or House of Peers - has a membership which is either unelected or else elected only by a clique.

Historically, the House of Lords was entirely unelected, and included hereditary peers as well as some but not all of the Bishops of the Church of England.  It enjoyed equal status with the House of Commons.

Then life peerages were created, and these were normally awarded either to senior judges or else to former government ministers.  Another change was that the House of Lords was given a reduced role in the process of passing legislation.  Generally speaking it can delay legislation but not obstruct it.

Further reforms at the end of the twentieth century removed most of the hereditary peers, but a minority remain, elected from among their fellow hereditaries.

As I write, the national press is reporting an apparent clamour to abolish the House of Lords.  Basically there are two options here.

The first is to have just a unicameral parliament with just one elected debating chamber, in which case a new use would need to be found for the chamber currently occupied by the House of Lords.  The second option is to replace the House of Lords with a second chamber which is either wholly or partly elected.

So far as I am aware, there is not and never has been a clamour for the former option.  The House of Lords serves as a revisionist chamber in which legislation which has already been debated in the House of Commons can be subjected to further scrutiny, and that is generally considered to be a good thing.

However the problem arises that there is a substantial lack of consensus on exactly how to replace the House of Lords.  Consider the wholly elected option.  To many people that might seem the only sensible option, but it is problematic.  If I were a member of the elected second chamber, then I would demand without hesitation the same rights as an MP in the lower chamber, and I think every other member of the upper chamber would do the same.

I wonder how many MPs would want the second chamber to have the power not merely to delay but also to obstruct legislation.  (I am not suggesting that the answer is none of them, but I certainly don't think it would be all of them.)

Now consider the option of a second chamber in which some members are elected and some members are appointed.  If I were an elected member of such a chamber, then I would still demand the same rights as an MP.  Granting me such rights would then require the government either to accord the same rights to the appointed members - in which case we might as well have a wholly elected chamber - or to try to engineer a truly mind-boggling situation in which different members of the upper chamber have differing powers.

I am not trying to lead the reader towards any conclusion other than that this matter is far from simple.