Saturday, January 01, 2011

Great Britain: The dangers of constitutional reform

It is exactly 100 years since a Liberal government resolved to eradicate the power of the hereditary peerage and create instead an elected House of Lords. Its purpose was explicitly set out in the preamble to the Parliament Act of 1911, which reads as follows: “It is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis.”

Alas for the prime minister, HH Asquith, he was evicted from office before he had time to realise his vision for the Upper House. Various prime ministers since – Harold Wilson in the late 1960s, Tony Blair in the late 1990s – have attempted to return to the issue, but their efforts met with at best partial success.

This is why, at the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the House of Lords remains largely as it was. Its members are selected either through the 18th-century principle of patronage (life peers) or the medieval principle of ancestor worship (hereditary peers). It is enjoyable, for example, to report that Lord Willoughby de Broke retains his place as a legislator. His grandfather (the 19th Baron) was one of the most forthright of the Tory peers, or so-called “backwoodsmen”, who fought in the last ditch against Asquith’s Parliament Act 100 years ago...

...Nick Clegg’s proposals, however, pose far more of a threat to the British system of government than Wilson’s plans ever did. This is because Clegg has secured a vital victory in Cabinet: that members of his House of Lords will be elected under the so-called STV system of proportional representation. This is the genuine PR which the Lib Dems have traditionally demanded, not the compromise AV method that voters will be asked to favour in May.

PR has many disadvantages, not least the loss of the constituency link. But on one issue it is unassailable: it represents what national voters want much more exactly than any other system. Members of Clegg’s House of Lords will be able to claim that they are the pure, unrefracted voice of the British people – and therefore the more legitimate of the two Houses. It is also likely that members of the new Lords (or Senate, as it will be called) will be sworn in for a decade or more, giving them extra power and authority.

It is easy to understand why Nick Clegg should advocate this. His Lib Dems, with around 20 per cent of the seats, will always hold the balance of power in the Upper House. The trouble is that such an arrangement will be a disaster for the nation as a whole. Voters will suddenly wake up and discover that we have two Parliaments rather than one. These Chambers will continually be in dispute, like the US Senate and the US Congress. Admittedly, disagreements between the Lords and the Commons have long been a feature of British politics. But these are mitigated by the fact that, as an unelected Chamber, the Lords has zero standing with the voters. This will change.
Read the rest here.

Personal opinion... Britain really doesn't need two houses of parliament. But I just can't think of a decent way of getting rid of the Commons.

No comments: