Can Labour introduce an elected House of Lords?

Keir Starmer is reportedly ready to stuff the House of Lords with sufficient nominees to ensure a future Labour government would be able to carry out its mandate and legislate as required. The Labour leader has also promised that radical reform of the upper house will be in the party manifesto at the next election.

He proposes to replace the current hybrid system of appointed and hereditary peers with a fully elected version, with representation from the nations and regions of the UK. Starmer is also unhappy with the current system of nominations for life peerages, and in particular with Boris Johnson’s controversial resignation honours nominations and, in prospect, a similarly problematic selection from Liz Truss.

What’s the balance of power in the Lords now?

If it were a local authority, it would be classed as “No Overall Control”. The Lords used to be heavily Conservative and predisposed to give Labour or Liberal governments trouble. However, waves of life peerages have left it with the Tories still the largest group, at 263; second place goes to the independent group of crossbenchers, loosely organised, holding 183 peerages. Just behind comes Labour on 174, and the Liberal Democrats on 84. There are 36 “non-aligned” peers and then a long tail of minority parties, plus the Archbishop of Canterbury and his colleagues. All agree that at 779 sitting members, it is too big. Around 92 are selected from a vestigial pool of hereditary peers, the product of an untidy reform by Tony Blair in 1999. A few peers are royal, and there are some judges who no longer take part.

Why does Starmer need to do this?

It is odd for three reasons. First, the issue doesn’t figure anywhere on the usual list of voter concerns. Second, the Starmer plan is a moderate affair compared to a previously more militant era in which Tony Benn promised to create a thousand Labour life peers in order to abolish the place. Third, the Salisbury Convention already holds that anything promised in a manifesto will be passed by the Lords with minimal quibbling; it dates back to the Attlee government after the Second World War, and has stood the rest of time.

However, as a matter of practicality, Labour sources say their ageing, if sprightly, contingent is “knackered” and needs reinforcements; Starmer will also be keen to make absolutely sure he can actually get his programme through both houses, and that goes for non-manifesto matters. If he heads a minority administration he will have troubles enough in the Commons.

Is reform of the Lords a good idea anyway?

Always in theory, rarely in practice. For one thing, in Britain’s asymmetric system of devolution, it’s not at all obvious how a Senate-style upper house would easily represent the nations and regions as Starmer suggests. Would all regions and nations get an equal voice, or would they be weighted in some way? What about the great cities, and historic counties? Does Rutland equal Greater Manchester? Cornwall equal Glasgow? Belfast on a par with Powys? There’s also the significant matter of Sinn Féin’s policy of abstentionism for Westminster, something that would leave a substantial proportion of its population voiceless in either house. The SNP also abstains from the Lords, and would need to reconsider their position on an elected body.

A more traditional and persistent objection is the issue of the “competing mandate”. If the new Lords were elected by proportional representation, and on a different electoral cycle, the upper house could claim to have a fresher mandate; one can only imagine what would happen if a phalanx of Farageists managed to form a majority in the Lords on the back of a mid-term protest vote. There are other issues, too: what to do with the existing life peers and their body of expertise and knowledge? What to do with the 15 Anglican bishops, sitting as of right, and the informal representation of other religious groups?

Further, there will always be supporters ready to defend the Lords on the grounds that change is unconstitutional, so the issue might end up in the Supreme Court. The lack of a broader consensus on the issue leaves open the destabilising possibility of some future populist government tearing up the Starmer reforms and imposing some new model.

Has reform been tried before?

Only in extremis. Since the Lords tried and failed to oppose the Liberal budget in 1909, it has usually avoided a full-on confrontation with the Commons. The threat, as now used by Starmer, to create hundreds of new peers usually does the trick if there is obstruction. Successive acts of parliament since the Edwardian era have left the Lords virtually powerless to prevent legislation becoming law eventually. What it can usefully do is protect human and constitutional rights, and ask the Commons to reconsider impractical, or badly-drafted bills. The problem with a “nations and regions” upper house is that it would degenerate into a set of lobbying groups for geographic interests and ‘pork-barrel’ politics, leading to bad laws.

What’s likely to happen?

The joke is that Lords reform is “a job for the third term” of a Labour government, and that is probably how it will turn out given the entrenched interests, wrangling and lack of consensus over the question. Most governments let sleeping dogs lie rather than devote disproportionate time and effort to something that never comes up on the doorstep. Mind you, there may never be a Lord Johnson of Uxbridge and South Ruislip.