How the Lords could once again be peerless
In Margaret Thatcher’s cabinet Norman Fowler developed a reputation for being deeply unexciting. However, the absence of self-publicity concealed a serious and successful conduct of potentially one of the most troublesome departments of state – the old Department of Health and Social Security – where he kept the lid on troubles for six years. Now Lord Fowler, and 78 years old, he has a new lease of life as Speaker of the House of Lords: and he is setting about the job with the energy of a man half his age.
He said last week that with the Commons being cut to 600 MPs there was no excuse for the Lords to be so large – more than 800 peers may sit there. This follows the abandon with which first Tony Blair and then David Cameron put their cronies into the Upper House. Worse, they cynically put other people’s cronies in too. Although the Liberal Democrats have only eight MPs and have ceased to exist as a political force, they have 105 peers. They can, therefore, obstruct business despite having no discernible mandate.
Given the commendable willingness of the Government to undo the toxic legacy of the Cameron years – seen spectacularly in its reversal of the odious anti-grammar school policy – I hope Lord Fowler might persuade it to look seriously at Lords reform, and reverse the gradual wrecking of a key part of the legislature. The present arrangements are not just a waste of public money: by having the Lords overstocked with mediocrities whose qualifications for membership go little beyond having shown blind obedience to recent prime ministers, it has been brought into disrepute.
Also, many senior peers tell me how depressing it is to see how badly some members of their House now behave. The Lords used to be distinguished by the civility and reasonableness of its proceedings. That is no longer inevitably true: the worst habits of the Commons have been imported there, and despite 200 cross-benchers and non-affiliates, the traditional independence and disinterest even of many with a party allegiance is disappearing. If the Lords becomes solely about party politics and not about shaping laws in the best possible way for the country, it becomes utterly pointless.
I think Lord Fowler is overly generous in thinking a decent revising chamber needs as many as 600 members. It probably doesn’t need more than 400 or 450 – the number of active peers with which it functioned for much of the 20th century. The issue, as he knows, is how to reduce the Lords to that number, and to keep membership from growing again.
A procedure exists to encourage peers to take permanent leave of absence, or to retire from the Lords. Lord Fowler should begin by requesting all parties, and the convener of the cross-benchers, to consult all their adherents and actively find peers who can be persuaded to resign their membership. But that would be unlikely to account for more than a few dozen.
Age is not necessarily an issue. It is the older peers (such as Lord Fowler) who, in many cases, are the most useful, and the younger ones who because of outside commitments or sheer unsuitability attend rarely. Another criterion should be to disqualify from membership everyone who, for reasons other than health, has in a fixed period attended the Lords for less than a certain percentage of sitting days. That, too, is likely not to bar some of the more inadequate peers, some of whom turn up mainly to claim attendance money.
Some have suggested that each party should elect a number of its own to sit in the Lords, but working out what those numbers would be could cause years of acrimonious dispute. It may just have to be that reform takes several years to complete, by letting the numbers of peers decline through death, further retirements and more leaves of absence as peers age, until a target number is reached. In 2015 18 peers died. Within five years a combination of natural wastage and peers giving up could take a further 150 off the numbers.
This wouldn’t stop the Prime Minister recommending new peerages: but such peers might have to wait to take their seats until someone dies. Most prime ministers have been responsible and restrained with their use of patronage: things went out of control in the past 20 years. Mrs May lacks the spivvery and gift for downright impropriety and shamelessness that disfigured some of her recent predecessors. As such she might be relied upon to treat the Lords more seriously, and recognise the vital job it must do in governing Britain. It does not exist simply as a means to reward toadies.
When the House has reached the predetermined membership new peers should be allowed to sit there only when there is a vacancy. This would have the added advantage of forcing prime ministers to choose new peers carefully, and not scrape the barrel to make up the numbers. And at that stage the House of Lords would start to be treated with respect again.
Constitutional change is never to be undertaken lightly. The only other change the Government should consider is to repeal the Fixed Term Parliaments Act – another part of the toxic Cameron legacy – not so it can have an early election (which the Prime Minister has quite correctly ruled out) but so, as throughout our history, we can have a general election whenever one is necessary. This, like Lords reform, would ensure we were better governed, and it would enhance our democracy.
Mrs May should do more than treat Lord Fowler with respect: she should urge him to devise the reduction in the Lords’ size, and assure him of full support for his proposals. Our constitution has been interfered with enough since the Nineties, almost always to bad effect. This would be a step in a different direction, and would re-create a political institution that the public could, for a change, admire and value.