House of Lords reform: what are the options?

Questions over the future of the House of Lords are back on the table in the light of Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list, which includes one of his former advisers, thought to be in her twenties, and Nadine Dorries.

Spiked columnist Mick Hume argued that the “motley collection of individuals” on Johnson’s list of around 20 new peers showed again that the House of Lords is a “menace to democracy, no matter who sits in it”. The Daily Express, meanwhile, said the honours would cost British taxpayers an “eye-watering” £559,180 a year.

Gina Miller, who brought the successful legal action against Boris Johnson’s prorogation of parliament in 2019 and now leads the True & Fair Party, has written to Public Administration Committee chair William Wragg, urging him to launch an inquiry into House of Lords reform, according to the Daily Mirror.

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Various alternatives to the House of Lords have been suggested over the years, from an elected second chamber, to a citizens’ assembly or even outright abolition.

Elected second chamber

An elected second chamber is a common proposition. This would be “a more mainstream proposal”, said the Constitution Unit. It added that “most suggestions have also included a minority of appointed members”, in order to “retain experts and political independents”.

However, attempts to launch one have reached numerous stumbling blocks. In July 2012, some 91 Tory MPs rebelled against the government on a bill to make the Lords mostly elected, the “largest such act of defiance since the coalition was formed in 2010”, said the BBC at the time.

A small senate

Writing for LSE Blogs in 2014, Stephen Barber argued that “in a legislative assembly, democracy is the only serious form of legitimacy”. Barber made a “bold suggestion” of creating 46 directly elected senators and abolishing the rest of the House of Lords.

He argued that “a small, high-powered – but elected – revising chamber offers the best opportunity to attract high quality, independent-minded, parliamentarians able to legitimately improve legislation without challenging the primacy of the Commons”.

Citizens’ assembly

A national citizens’ assembly has been suggested, said The Alternative, arguing that “for Lords reform to be a serious attempt at listening, inspiration needs to be taken from the local level”.

It suggested an “intriguing possibility” of a two-chamber legislature: one based on elected representation made up of MPs, and the other on “deliberative democracy made-up of ‘ordinary’ citizens”. This would guarantee the general population a “direct, consensual voice at the heart of political decision-making to complement the representative and adversarial traditions of the Commons”, it said.

A house of mayors

Writing in the Financial Times last year, Sebastian Payne said “a new chamber that gives local mayors a voice in Westminster is the best way to level up England”. He suggested that senior councillors and members of the devolved institutions could join the mayors in the body.

Paul Goodman of Conservative Home gave this proposal a backing, of sorts, when he wrote in March that “this looks like the least disruptive alternative to the present chamber and therefore, almost by definition, the least bad”.

Abolition

Another option would be to simply abolish the Lords. This was Labour policy for a while during the 1980s but when the House of Commons voted on it in 2003, it was by defeated by 390 votes to 172, with just two Tories voting in favour.

During her campaign for the Labour leadership in 2020, Rebecca Long-Bailey resurrected the proposal, saying that having “completely unelected people” within the structure of government was wrong and representative of the “Westminster bubble”, reported The Guardian.

Although many countries, including Norway, Portugal, Denmark, Israel and New Zealand, do not have an upper house, the Constitution Unit argued that the UK is a “large and diverse country – features which tend to be associated with bicameral [two house] parliaments”.