The House of Lords has no role in a modern democracy
THE House of Lords is an affront to democracy. Grossly anachronistic and wholly unrepresentative of the British people, it should have no place in a modern Parliament. The chamber likes to see itself as the guardian of the constitution but in reality it is a palace of cronyism and smug metropolitan groupthink.
Its unfitness for any role in our national governance was graphically demonstrated during the long stalemate at Westminster over Brexit, when pro-EU peers used every possible manoeuvre to thwart the EU referendum result.
As a bastion of Remainer dogma, the House of Lords closely resembles the Brussels bureaucracy that it worships.
Both are unelected, unaccountable institutions, packed with federalist ideologues and grasping timeservers.
Even after last month’s general election, when the Remainer parties were pulver- ised by Boris Johnson’s proBrexit Tories, the Upper House is still at it. Despite the Prime Minister’s clear electoral mandate, this week the Lords inflicted no fewer than five defeats on his Brexit legislation which enacts Britain’s departure by the end of January.
Brimming with their usual arrogance, the peers backed amendments that covered the rights of child refugees, consultation with the devolved assemblies, the position of EU migrants in Britain, the role of the Supreme Court and compliance with rulings from the European Court of Justice.
FORTUNATELY these antics had little real impact. The Tories’ solid majority in the Commons meant that all the amendments were quickly overturned. In practice, the Lords’ anti-Brexit legislative frenzy was just an exercise in gesture politics.
Nevertheless, it is outrageous that the Lords, devoid of any electoral legitimacy, still feels free to indulge in this kind of pro-EU posturing.
Recently the Government has tried to address the Lords’ lack of authority with the suggestion that the chamber might be moved to York, as a means of both connecting with northern voters and switching the focus of Parliament away from the capital. But the biggest problem with the Lords is not its location but its composition.
Effectively it is a gigantic, expensive quango. With 794 members, not one of whom was voted into power. It is the second largest legislative body in the world after the Chinese People’s Assembly, another outfit renowned for its undemocratic nature.
Absurdly, there are still 92 hereditary peers who owe their positions to an accident of birth. But the vast majority of members are life peers, appointed through political patronage. This is recipe for debasement and bias in public life. Sustained by favouritism, the House miserably fails to reflect the outlook of the public.
At the December election, for instance, the Liberal Democrats won just 11 seats, yet they have 96 peers in the Upper House.
The system also rewards failure. Tory Zac Goldsmith was thrown out by Richmond voters, yet he was quickly ennobled so he could remain a Government minister.
Even more egregiously, Labour’s forthcoming Dissolution Honours list is said to put forward peerages for Karie Murphy, the director of the party’s disastrous campaign, and the former Speaker John Bercow, who became a byword for attention-seeking partiality.
What makes this racket all the more offensive is its cost. Taxpayers have to fork out about £68million for the Lords, the equivalent of about £85,000 for each member. Peers can claim an allowance of £313 per day simply for attending, no matter how briefly.
Last year it was revealed that one Labour peer, former trade union official Lord Brookman pocketed £50,000 in annual allowances, without intervening in a single debate or asking any written question.
DEFENDERS of the Lords often attempt to justify its existence by referring to the supposed expertise, intelligence and experience of the peers, but this is nonsense.
The whole place is a citadel of mediocrity. Its debates are dull in the extreme, partly because so many peers just read from a prepared text.
The Victorian constitutional expert Walter Bagehot wrote that “the cure for admiring the House of Lords is to look at it”. That remains true today.
Brexit is the ideal moment to revitalise our democracy. For the Lords, that means its wholesale abolition, not further piecemeal reform or changes of location. In a Parliament fit for a free nation, we need a democratically elected second chamber that heeds the voice of the people.
‘The biggest problem is not its location but its composition’