Praise The Lords

This evening, speaker after speaker at the 1922 Committee opposed the abolition of the House of Lords in favour of an elected second chamber. But that has been the policy of both Coalition parties for far longer than it has been that of Labour, if it is now.

Thank goodness that there is still some part of our parliamentary system from which it remains possible to speak from outside the nasty but inevitable union between, on the one hand, what has always been the anti-parliamentary New Left and, on the other hand, the sociologically indistinguishable New Right’s arrival at hatred of Parliament as the natural conclusion of its hatred of the State. From that union, together with the SDP’s misguided Alliance with the Liberals around their practically Bennite constitutional agenda, derives the Political Class’s desire to abolish the House of Lords.

For those who keep such scores, the House of Lords has a higher proportion of women, a higher proportion of people from ethnic minorities, a broader range of ethnic minorities, and far more people from working-class backgrounds generally and the trade union movement in particular, than can be found down the corridor. More significantly, and despite the very hard efforts of successive governments, it also retains a broader range of political opinion, more reflective of the country at large.

But that is under grave threat, both from the party machines and from the way of all flesh. The future composition of the House would be secured, at least in part, by providing for each current life peer, at least who attends very or fairly regularly, to name an heir, by no means necessarily or even ordinarily a relative, but rather a political and a wider intellectual soul mate. That heir would become a peer upon his or her nominator’s death, and would thus acquire the same right of nomination.

Each party should choose its working peers by seeking nominations from its branches, including those of affiliated organisations, and putting out to a ballot of the entire electorate those with the most nominations, up to one and a half times their respective allocations. Each of us could then vote for up to half that allocation, and the highest scoring allocated number would get in. The law should further require that every four or five years, the 12 units already used for European Elections would each elect three Crossbenchers, with each of us voting for one candidate and with the three highest scorers being ennobled.

If there must be an elected second chamber, then let each of the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties, and the traditional six counties of Northern Ireland, plus perhaps the London Boroughs and the Metropolitan Boroughs, elect an equal number. Say, six. Each of us would vote for one candidate, with the requisite number declared elected at the end. There would be no Ministers in that House, although they would appear before it for Departmental Question Times. And, which is perhaps the most important point of all, parties that contested elections to the House of Commons would be banned from contesting elections to the second chamber.