What's good about the House of Lords today?

As an institution the House of Lords has many advantages:

Many of its members have a lifetime of experience in many walks of life - this experience can make a significant contribution to the progress of legislation and serve to caution the government of the day.

Members do not face re-election. As appointees they have jobs for life. This gives them the independence to speak their minds - they do not have to face the charge of duplicity or sycophancy faced by elected politicians. This is an important consideration in an environment where much of the public will simply see a new elected chamber as another way of providing jobs for the boys.

The House is unelected. This means that it cannot contest the Commons in terms of legitimacy or power and guarantees the supremacy of the latter. An elected upper house would be the target of career politicians and simply become the battleground for the sectional interests of political parties (admittedly this does exist today but is very subdued). The British people have always favoured decisive government and the possibilty of having Houses dominated by different political groupings with independent democratic legitimacy would risk conflict and paralysis.

We should seek to build upon these qualities by seeking to have an appointed chamber of the great and the good from all walks of life who can serve their country as might the elders of simpler communities in the past. However, a mechanism must be found to replace the current mode of appointment by another one which is seen as fairer and more representative of society as a whole.

What needs fixing?

The current House of Lords is seen by many of the general public as a haven of social privilege, a place of old men whose wavering voices can be heard only when they are not snoring on the benches. Its arcane customs suggest inefficiency and a disinterestedness in the real world beyond its doors. Such a place is an affront to our notions of democracy and social fairness.

The Proposal

How to combine the benefits of appointment with the credibilty of democratic participation.

I propose that the Lords be appointed by juries selected in the same way juries are selected for the courts. Juries (I will call them Juries of Appointment) would be called into existnce to serve a limited period to be determined and make their selection by invitation or from candidates proposed by the general public. They would be assisted by a staff of civil servants who would discover candidates according to criteria determined by each jury - except when the jury is tasked otherwise, see below. Prior to their consideration candidates would be asked if they would accept a seat in the Lords and agree to a minimum participation.

The advantages

The jury system is well understood by the general public and enshrines the principal of equality - the accused in a court of law is seen as being judged by his peers. The principle of equality would persist since the members of the jury would be selecting their peers for appointment to the Lords. The peers of the realm would no longer be equal in theory) to the monarch- they would be equal to the commons.

An appointed House of Lords could not contest power with the Commons - legitimacy to rule, as opposed to the right to scrutinise and comment, will always rest with the elected chamber.

Appointment to the Lords will ensure that its composition is different to that of the Commons. A frequent criticism of the Commons is that it lacks diversity. Comparatively few occupational backgrounds are represented: journalists, teachers, lawyers and quite a few career politicians and trade unionists - people especially suited to the self-publicity of the political process. However, an aptitude for self-publicity is not necessarily the most desirable quality we would seek in those who govern our country. An appointed Lords would spare candidates the embarrassment of the hustings and more closely reflect the diversity of our national life. And this diversity would bring with it a greater wealth of expertise and experience - ideal for contributing to the various committees and for the general role of oversight.

The Lords would be relatively free of party politics and wholly or largely free of career politicians. Membership of the political parties has fallen while membership of pressure groups has risen. The public have become impatient with the failure of the parliamentary system to express the pluralism of the society at large. The public want strong stable government which seems to indicate a need for a relatively small number of parties yet at the same time pluralism is seen as being at the heart of what it is to be democratic. By ensuring greater pluralism in the Lords our parliamentary system can go some way to ameliorating this conflict.

It should no longer be possible to use the Lords to reward donors to political party funds. It is unfortunately the case that the Lords has been abused in this way.

The Lords would be a more effective moral counterweight to the commons. The measures above would allow the Lords to be more democratic and more effective without disturbing the political balance between the two houses.

A system of ad hoc juries would be cheaper than of full blown electoral system. With an elected house the cost of campaigning would be prohibitive for independent candidates and costly for political parties on the back of the costs of the cost of a general election.

How might this work?

One concern could be that juries would simply become political versions of 'Britain's got talent.' It is certainly the case that juries should be able to consider their affairs out of the public view:

• The meetings of the juries would be held in camera with the same rules of confidentiality as for a trial jury.
• Jurors should consist of 12 men and women and be selected in the same way as trial jurors are selected, except that jurors should be entitled to decline service (this parallels the voting system where voting is not compulsory).
• Juries would be called into existence on an ad hoc basis and their deliberations time-limited.
• Juries would have a civil service bureau to assist them.
• Candidates would be bound by the same rules of confidentiality as the jurors.
• Selection of candidates for the Lords, at least in the first instance, would not be on the basis of interview.
• Jurors could receive a period of induction which could encourage them to consider a diverse range of candidates.
• There could be two kinds of jury - juries which propose candidates and juries which select from those proposed.
• Juries should reflect the regions of Britain but also the population structure using a formula to be determined.
• Juries are likely to encounter many persons of distinction in the course of their deliberations who might nevertheless be considered unsuitable to serve in the Lords - they should be able to confer an honour upon them thereby democratising the honours system also .
• The competence of jurors should not be disdained - they are considered able to determine matters of innocence or guilt in a court of law.

Who might be considered for membership of the Lords and in what circumstances?

For the Lords to carry out its business effectively its membership needs to be able to perform the tasks required of them.

• Candidates considered for membership of the Lords should have a proven track record of exceptional achievement.
• They should come from a great variety of walks of life.
• Excepting where the jury expressly invites candidacy they must be proposed by other persons who have known them for a period of years - these to be determined.
• They should be capable of participating in an expert way on one or more of the committees of the House of Lords - or when a vacancy occurs on a committee the next Lord appointed should be capable of performing that role.
• They should be appointed when a vacancy appears.
• To ensure continuity and consistency in the membership of the Lords and allow for a learning curve the new system should be introduced progressively, gradually replacing the hereditary Lords then only replacing life peers as seats become vacant.
• No Lord should remain in office for longer than 15 years and should be permitted to retire before that time.
• Lords should retain the title for life unless dismissed for abuse of office.
• It might be possible for the Prime Minister of the day to appoint a limited number of Lords from within the ranks of the commons - this could be arranged in a variety of ways and would ensure that the Lords had members with experience of the commons.

Has anyone had this idea before?

It's hard to have an original idea and since publishing this web site I have discovered that a book has been published on this theme titled The Athenian Option: Radical Reform for the House of Lords by Anthony Barnett and Peter Carty, published by Imprint Academic in 2008. It can be found on Amazon.co.uk and has the following description:

Before New Labour came to power and when even the prospect of reform of Britain s House of Lords was regarded with scepticism, Anthony Barnett and Peter Carty developed the idea of selecting part of a new upper house by lot: creating a jury or juries, that are representative of the population as a whole while being selected at random, to assess legislation. This new edition of the original proposal includes an account of the reception of the idea, their evidence before the Commission on the Lords established by Tony Blair, and a response to the great advances in citizen-based deliberation that have taken place since the mid-1990s. It concludes with a new appeal to adopt their approach as efforts to reform the Lords continue. Anthony Barnett was the first director of Charter 88 and is the founder of openDemocracy.net; Peter Carty is a journalist and writer.

Anthony Barnett tells me what is remarkable about this idea is its ubiquity - so many people have thought of it yet it remains rejected by the political parties. It's not hard to see why.

 

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