Lording it

The House of Lords has defeated yet another Government motion, this time on the voting age for council elections. It backed lowering it from 18 to 16. Plans may be afoot to do something similar to the EU referendum bill. Putting aside the lack of public will for such a change, the wider concern is constitutional. As Lord Heseltine argued, it would have been far more appropriate for such a reform to have begun its life in the Commons. Baroness Williams of Trafford, the local government minister, pointed out: “We are an unelected chamber – it is not the place for us to propose a change in the franchise.”

Indeed it is not. But it reflects a growing taste among Left-wing peers for frustrating the elected government. Labour and Liberal Democrat peers have also voted through amendments to allow cities to get new powers without the need for elected mayors. Likewise, the Government has been defeated in the Lords over plans to introduce a blanket ban on so-called legal highs.

This Left-leaning coalition obviously does not embody the will of the country as expressed in the recent Tory election victory – and yet its size will continue to expand. This is thanks in no small part to the appointment of new Lib Dem peers, even at a time when their Commons representation has fallen to risible numbers. Tim Farron, the new party leader, will find his cohort of MPs farcically outnumbered by Lib Dem peers. By contrast, Ukip, which gained a far higher share of the vote in May, is hardly represented in the Lords at all. Left-wing peers should consider all these facts before seeking in future to embarrass the Government – a Government that has a far better claim to represent the country.