Andrew McKie: Calling for reform of the Lords is as traditional a part of British life as Trooping the Colour – HeraldScotland

THERE have been renewed calls for reform of the House of Lords, after someone noticed as they do, every so often that it doesnt conform in every particular with the institutional models favoured by, say, the Electoral Reform Society.

These calls, as regular and traditional a part of British life as Derby Day or Trooping the Colour, remind me of the rich tapestry of our history, repeating and renewing itself, always evolving and yet somehow always fundamentally the same.

I refer, naturally, not to the House of Lords itself, which I dont care about all that much, but to the glorious heritage and pageantry of calls for the reform of the House of Lords, which date back centuries, yet still thrive.

The latest excuse is provided by the fact that Norman Fowler (as he used to be) is stepping down as Lord Speaker, and two candidates to replace him Lady Hayter and Lord Alderdice think the remaining hereditary peers should now be removed. But this is merely the latest bit of tinkering in a process that has been going on for nearly 500 years.

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The earliest reforms were conducted by literally axing a few earls here and there, but there were systematic alterations to the Houses make-up as early as the 1530s, when Thomas Cromwell got shot of the abbots.

A century later, the rest of the Lords Spiritual (ie, the bishops, a group people are still trying to get rid of today) were chucked out under the Clergy Act 1640. There then came what you might think of as a fairly conclusive reform abolishing the Lords altogether which happened in 1649.

It soon became clear, however, that not having a House of Lords was a serious obstacle to politicians and the public exercising their historic, inalienable right to call for its reform or abolition. Accordingly, it was restored in 1660, and for good measure, the following year they stuck the bishops back in it.

After the Act of Union, the English and Scottish peerages were abandoned for a Peerage of Great Britain, and a similar thing happened in 1801, when it turned into the peerage of the United Kingdom and Ireland. In both cases a fudge, similar to the one that has led to the survival of the last few hereditary peers, was devised for Scottish and Irish peers to elect some of their number.

Then there were all sorts of changes: admitting Irish bishops (1801); banning life peers (1856); banning Irish bishops (1871); creating law lords (1876); removing Welsh bishops (1920); removing Irish peers (gradually, from 1922); creating life peers (1958); as well as things like admitting female hereditary peers, letting hereditary peers renounce their titles sometimes to get new, different life peerages immediately afterwards which all happened in the 1960s.

Between then and the Blair government, we effectively stopped creating hereditary peerages and, in 1999, Mr Blair got rid of most of them. He then perfected reform by appointing 374 new peers on his own say-so.

But 92 hereditaries remained as a compromise. Currently, they elect new members from eligible peers whenever one dies or, since another reform in 2014, resigns (something peers couldnt previously do), though, because covid has prevented elections, theyre a few short at the moment.

The 1999 reform, simultaneously the most comprehensive, the most botched, and the most illogical and indefensible, by any side on any grounds, was largely the work of Lord Wakeham who, as it happens, glibly assured me a few months before it happened that there would be no problems and no compromises. His plan was amended by people like Lord Cranbourne, who ensured there were as many problems and compromises getting it through as possible.

That illustrated a bizarre fact that Lord Wakeham was initially determined to ignore: though almost every politician of almost every party has agreed for more than a century that the fundamental basis for the Lords is unjustifiable and illogical, every plan to reform it has been flawed or frustrated. And in contradictory ways: either by making it less effective, or more effective.

The one virtue of an appointed house is that you can get all sorts of distinguished experts in their fields notably lawyers, but also scientists, businessmen, people from the arts, and various regional, community (including minority community) and faith leaders. The last, even if more contentious, are not these days confined to the Church of England. Actually, even some of the hereditary peers have such expertise or experience.

I cant see much of a case for keeping them, though. But the case for appointed peers is more nuanced. The current appointments system is not democratic, and often bloody awful, but its possible to see why its useful for a revising chamber.

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And, at the moment, thats all the Upper House is. It cannot create legislation; only hold it up or point out flaws in it. By convention (since 1911), it cant stop money bills, or things that were in the governments manifesto, though many members had a good go after the Brexit vote to the approval of lots of people who normally complain about the Lords undemocratic nature.

If, however, we did the logical thing and made it democratic, it creates a different problem: paradoxically, one of democratic accountability. Parliamentary democracy currently operates on the basis that the Commons, being elected, is the font of power: it challenges the executive and, while it may receive suggestions for amendments from the Lords, can ultimately overrule it.

A legitimate, elected, second chamber would remove that presumption; there would be no justification for the Lords only to advise and revise. Of course, a way round this could no doubt be found. Other countries (lots of them) have bicameral set-ups that work. But it could be done only by tearing up every aspect of our entire system of government Commons as well as Lords and starting again, probably with new roles, checks and balances for every branch of the state from ministers to the judiciary.

Even in the short history of the renewed Scottish parliament, its clear that newly devised mechanisms like an electoral system that would prevent an overall majority, or the way the parliament as a whole holds ministers to account dont always work as intended or predicted. Its why were still tinkering with the Lords, half a millennium after we started doing it.

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Andrew McKie: Calling for reform of the Lords is as traditional a part of British life as Trooping the Colour - HeraldScotland