8/14/2019 Why Has It Been Such a Problem to Reform the House of Lords

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Why has it been such a problem to reformthe House of Lords?

First of all, the House of Lords has grown from medieval origins,however, two distinct chambers formed during the reign of Edward III;one of course being the House of Lords and the other the House ofCommons. Over the past century there has been much talk aboutreform within the Lords particularly with regards to the fatal confusionbetween its content and function. This essay will examine why it hasbeen such a problem to reform the House of Lords.

Firstly we will separate the ideas of content and function by firstlooking at who sits in the House of Lords. There are several varieties ofpeople in the House of Lords. A man or woman who is eligible to sit inthe House of Lords is a person with a title who is usually considered tobe vastly rich, which is sometime s the case. Firstly there arehereditary peers. These are people who are members of thearistocracy and thus are entitled to participate within the House of

Lords. They have had their title passed down to them, however, undernew legislation they are not allowed to pass down their title to theirdescendants. Indeed, in 1998 when the labour government came topower they began to remove the hereditary peers from the House ofLords, thus they barred them from sitting there.

The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, theright of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will beended by statuteLabour manifesto 1997.

In 1998 there were originally 587 hereditary peers in the Houseof Lords, however, not all the hereditary peers were removed when thegovernment reprieved 92 peers to stay. The simple process of deathwill eventually remove the current existing hereditary peers within theLords. The other type of peer is that of a Life Peer. A Life Peer is amember of the UK who has been give a peerage by the government,however, their children may not inherit their title nor sit in the Lords.Any person from actors to ex-trade unionists be awarded a lifepeerage. This group now occupies the majority of the House of Lordswith around 600 peers in it. The next group are the law lords. Thereare 14 of them which have recently moved from the House of Lords to

the Supreme Court building. They are now called Supreme Courtjustices and no longer sit in the House of Lords. The final group aremembers the Church of England. For the last 400 years England hashad a National Confession (a national church) and through this bishopsof the church, 24 of them, have the right to sit in the House of Lordsand have had this right since the 16th century. However, previousmembers of the church have chosen never to sit in the Lords, forexample the present chief Rabbi, Mr. Jacobovitz.

The Lords reform is a major problem within our constitution forthe reason that there has been an argument going on since the turn ofthe 20th century. It has been 100th anniversary this year of the first

major reform which the House of Lords underwent. In 1909 there wasa great crisis when the House of Lords rejected the budget which David

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Lloyd Georges government attempted to put through it. This budgetwas proposing to introduce income tax for the first time in the historyof our government. When seeing this proposition the House of Lordsrejected it at once, incidentally, this was the first time the Lords hadever rejected a budget. Consequently the government resigned andthus there was a general election which reduced the majority of thethen Liberal government. The budget was then put forward a second

time causing the government to resign and another general election totake place which the Liberals won with an even smaller majority. Uponthis, the king was forced to agree on the creation of 400 new peerswithin the Lords. These peers were permitted to sit in the Lords for thereason that when in the Lords they would vote in favour of a reform tothe powers of the House of Lords. Thus in the parliament act of 1911the House of Lords was no longer allowed to reject money bills; any billwhich the government claimed to be a money bill the Lords could notreject. As well as this, the powers of the Lords which enabled them todelay any piece of legislation were severely cut back. The Lords alsohave problems. For example, if a democratic system to elect Lords wasintroduced then the House of Lords would become a rival House a suchto the commons. Next there is the issue of power. If the Lords were tohave very little power then the question would be asked by manypeople what is the point of having them at all? On the other hand ifthey are to be given much power had are able to have a considerablesay in legislation for example, then it the system will be calledundemocratic as the members of the Lords have not been elected bythe people. The end result is that it appears the House of Lords cannotwin. Attempts to reform the Lords have to navigate between those twoitems, thus making it difficult to reform the Lords. Thus far attemptsto reform the Lords have had very little progress with a variety ofschemes having come to nothing. On one occasion around five yearsago, the commons voted on seven separate proposals for the Lordsreform with special regards to the balanced between those peers whichare elected and those which are appointed. All of these proposals wererejected by the House of Commons.

Perhaps the key point which makes reforming the House of Lordsa problem is the fact that it is wholey undemocratic. None of themembers are voted in therefore many people feel that the House ofLords should have very limited powers. This major point has held backproceedings to reform the Lords since 1909. Indeed, in 1998 when theLabour government had come to power they wanted to reform theLords greatly. They even set up a Royal Commission under thecommand of Lord Wakeham in order to investigate what was to bedone. However, in 2001 he stated very little of substance. He saidthat The Lords could either be all elected peers, or all the Lords couldbe appointed or a mixture of these two ideas.

There are many who say that there is no role for the Lords as asecond chamber. These days they have very little power withinparliament and thus their powers of scrutiny are very limited. In NewZealand for example there is simply one chamber, however, the needfor some kind of safeguard from the successive power of the electedchamber is clearer than ever. For example, the Welfare Reform Billwas put forward by parliament in early 1990s, however, the House of

Lords reacted in a significantly awkward way so much so that theywere able to change the bill for the best when it was passed in 1999.

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Therefore if the Lords strongly reject a bill then it may well be changed.As well as this the power that the Lords have to delay a bill issignificant.

In conclusion, the Lords face many problems on their way to afair reform. There are different types of people within the Lords andthis is always a problem, for example, hereditary peers. Through thisthere is always the issue of should the Lords be democratic? The fact

that some peers are not elected and those that are, are elected by thegovernment; this causes great controversy. The Lords must alsonavigate between those two points of have little power and having too

much power.