Keep the House of Lords

Part of the debate of how to make Parliament more accountable and democratic has been the red herring of reforming the House of Lords. This has been a particular bugbear for the left for many years, with the idea being that a group of unrepresentative, undemocratic, rich Tories were blocking the will of the people from being implemented.

However, this is no longer the case. Since Labour's removal of hereditary peers during their first term of office, and really since the Parliament Act which forbade the Lords from blocking a Commons bill more than three times (and later conventions and amendments that make it almost impossible for the Lords to block money bills or manifesto commitments), the Lords has become, I would argue, pretty much the perfect second chamber.

This may sound odd, and more importantly may sound like another example of a hide-bound conservative supporting the House of Lords because it is a) old, and b) has a lot more Conservatives in it than the Commons at the moment. However, I would argue that an appointed upper chamber is a great advantage in Britain, and the House of Lords in it's current form is the best system for it.

There are three main reasons why I think the House of Lords as constituted is the best form of Upper House for Britain (and let me say from the outset that I do not think that an appointed upper chamber is the best method everywhere. In fact, it is only because of the particular history of the Lords that it works in Britain - or to put it another way, if the House of Lords did not already exist, a country couldn't create it). There reasons are lack of democratic accountability (and thus a lack of mandate), the ability to have non-elected people become Ministers of the Crown, and representation and independence.

The big reason, for me, for the continuation of the House of Lords in its current state is the lack of democratic accountability. This may sound like a very strange thing to say, so let me put it another way. The House of Lords is unelected, therefore it has no mandate. Prior to the Parliament Act, the situation was intolerable where you might have the unelected Lords blocking laws with popular approval from the Commons. Today, however, you have a chamber which has been shorn of the power to do anything other than delay and amend legislation. Were the Lords to be replaced by an elected body, the sheer physics of legislative creep mean it is unlikely that a 'senate' or any other elected chamber would be willing to maintain the subservient position of the House of Lords. And, frankly, were a second chamber to have its own elected mandate then it would be right to claim powers equal to the House of Commons. In America we have seen this system further entrench the partisan divide in Washington, but also lead to gridlock between the two Houses of Congress, as different versions of the same law are often introduced, requiring long debate and negotiation even on laws where both houses broadly agree on the general proposal.
But the House of Lords could never claim these powers. Therefore, the House of Lords has become (and even accepted as such by many in the House of Commons) the main scrutiniser of legislation.

The second reason is the ability to use non-elected people as Ministers. Many people have been lately decrying the selection of Sir Alan Sugar as the new 'Enterprise Tsar' (whatever that means... but it does mean his elevation to the Lords), which seems ironic, since that many of those same members of the chattering classes have been saying how wonderful the American and French cabinet systems are (where anyone, whether elected or not, can be invited to sit in Cabinet). I argue quite the opposite. I think it is a great strength to be able to select someone who the Prime Minister considers to be the best for the job, even if that person may not have been elected. Now of course, the backbone of British-style democracy is that the Government must be accountable to Parliament, and must therefore sit in Parliament. So, appointing someone from outside the political world would be impossible without a chamber that is appointed, since without the appointed House of Lords, such a 'non-political' person would have to wait for a by-election, stand for it, and win it before they could take on their ministerial duties. An appointed House of Lords gives the Prime Minister the opportunity to select whoever they think may be best for the particular government role, and it also give those who would be unlikely to reach a Ministerial position in an elected chamber (for example, Lord Miners or Sir Alan Sugar, who both have spent their careers in business and are therefore unlikely to have the inclination to either stand for Parliament, or to sit on the backbenches once they got there) or those who would be unlikely to be chosen as a party candidate the ability to help the country by being part of the Government.

The third reason ties in somewhat with the first. Because the members of the House of Lords are appointed for life, this gives the members great freedom from both the electorate and party whips when it comes to amending or delaying legislation. In the Commons the party whips wield immense power (as do the party hierarchy), because they can make ore break the Parliamentary careers of most politicians. Any desires that a backbencher might have of higher office (and there would be VERY few who could say with a straight face they have no such desire) are reliant on the party leadership. It is difficult for MP's to vote against the party on contentious issues where the party is three-line whipping (as in, pulling out all the stops to get MP's to vote the party line). However, the Lords (for the most part) have no such ambitions, and considering the largest bloc of Lords sit aloof from any party, this reduces the power of party whips further.
Take, for example, the attempts by the Government last year to extend to 42 days the amount of time police could hold suspects without charge. The Government was successfully able to pass the legislation through the Commons on a knife-edge vote. The Lords voted down the bill by such a majority that the Government's case was irreparably damaged and the law was shelved. The fact that the Lords do not have to run for election also gives them the stand as a bailiwick against hasty and ill-prepared legislation being brought in as a response to a particular issue that has enraged the public.
Now, of course I will never attempt to argue that the Lords always lives up to this Utopian picture I have painted. Of course there have been times where the Lords has happily passed through legislation without amendment that turned out to be ill-advised or had large loopholes. But an unelected chamber has the ability to hold up bills for scrutiny in the face of public and governmental demands in a way in which no elected chamber could.

There is one other small argument for the retention of the House of Lords. Money. Interestingly, a quick look through the Lords expenses shows a much cheaper house than it's elected cousin. Lord are not paid salaries, and can claim expenses only for sitting days they actually attend. The average Lord receives (this is a non-scientific perusal of the expenses documents) around 40,000 pounds a year, including office expenses (although this exclude a large number of Lord who claim little or nothing on expenses). An elected body would be significantly more expensive to run.