Unsurprisingly, not everyone agrees with my point of view! So here is an email response to my comments on the House of Lords:

Just reading through your diary again, I thought I would be a little controversial and disagree with your comments on an elected 2nd Chamber. The problem with democracy is that even if a majority of people hold an opinion, it may not be correct, merely the “flavour of the month”. (As the saying goes, democracy is awful, until one considers the alternatives). If one has a wholly elected 2nd chamber, they would tend to reflect the current “politically correct” view. Moreover, they would probably be the same political hue as the Government of the day. The chances of them disagreeing with the Government, therefore, would be slim. I cannot believe that anyone really relished the thought of an unrestrained Government of whichever flavour is in!

Whilst the old House of Lords had possibly become, and certainly viewed as being, too much biased towards a particular section of society, if you ever listened to debates they were far better researched and more considered than those in the Commons. Many of the hereditary peers took their responsibility to keep the Government “honest” very seriously, and made a point of being far better informed on topics than “here today—gone tomorrow” ministers. Even if all they could do was delay some of the wilder excesses of the Government, it often happened that the issues were quietly killed once the issue ceased to arouse a media inspired feeding-frenzy. Quick legislation is rarely good legislation.

Of course, one needs rules to prevent loading the 2nd Chamber with Government cronies. Perhaps having a percentage elected (out of synch with the Government elections), a percentage appointed by the Government, a percentage appointed by opposition parties and a percentage appointed by business/church/charities/military or whatever might work.

Anyway, I don’t want to start an email argument, but I hope you might appreciate an alternative viewpoint, if only to counter it.

My reply:

The problem with democracy is that even if a majority of people hold an opinion, it may not be correct, merely the “flavour of the month”.

That’s true, although in a representative democracy it depends on the opinions held every N years and how brave the elected representatives are feeling inbetween. Which, admittedly, is usually not very brave, hence the current undignified spectacle over “terrorist asylum seekers”. However, I feel that, ab initio, we have to take some form of democracy as given. What are the alternatives? Dictatorship, even the “benign” kind, seems hardly more appealing!

If one has a wholly elected 2nd chamber, they would tend to reflect the current “politically correct” view. Moreover, they would probably be the same political hue as the Government of the day.

I have to disagree with you here. If you look at, for example, America or France, where second-chamber elections are staggered (half synchronised and half staggered in the US if I recall correctly), they frequently end up electing a different party into one chamber than the other. The French even have a word for it, “la Cohabitation”.

Whilst the old House of Lords had possibly become, and certainly viewed as being, too much biased towards a particular section of society

Possibly become? I would put it rather more strongly than that. My acid test would be this—could anyone, on merit, participate? Could I? In the case of the House of Lords, the answer has to be no. Hereditary peer: born noble? No. Bishop? I’m not even a Christian, let alone an ordained member of the CofE, so no. The only possible way, therefore, is through patronage, which is in the gift of the government of the day. Judging by the people they tend to appoint, that is hardly inclusive by any meaningful standard.

Many of the hereditary peers took their responsibility to keep the Government “honest” very seriously, and made a point of being far better informed on topics than “here today—gone tomorrow” ministers.

That is quite true. Of course, some of them did nothing of the sort, either! However, the point is not that it doesn’t work—Britain has self-evidently not collapsed in chaos, nor is it especially likely to, no matter what is done to the second chamber. So, in a practical sense, it works. However, it is impossible to justify from a democratic point of view. Churchmen and noblemen? That is by definition not democracy.

Even if all they could do was delay some of the wilder excesses of the Government, it often happened that the issues were quietly killed once the issue ceased to arouse a media inspired feeding-frenzy. Quick legislation is rarely good legislation.

Certainly. “That government is best which governs least,” as Thoreau said. The media are out of control, and the ability of a small number of people (specifically the editors of certain national daily newspapers) to manipulate and influence the political landscape is deeply disturbing, so delaying hasty legislation is almost invariably a good thing. But that is the limit of their abilities, to delay legislation for a single parliamentary session at most. If the government is determined, particularly if it has a large majority, it cannot be stopped.

Conversely, if the second chamber had democratic legitimacy, some of the present restrictions on its powers would not be necessary. They stem originally from the 1911 Parliament Act, which was a response to the refusal of the Tory-dominated Lords to subordinate to the Whig-majority Commons. It would be harder to dismiss the opinions of a second chamber out of hand if they came from a body with a democratic mandate.

Of course, one needs rules to prevent loading the 2nd Chamber with Government cronies. Perhaps having a percentage elected (out of synch with the Government elections), a percentage appointed by the Government, a percentage appointed by opposition parties and a percentage appointed by business/church/charities/military or whatever might work.

The trouble with this approach, in my opinion, is that there would be a difference between members based on their mandate. Would the view of an appointee be considered more or less important than that of an elected member? For better or worse, there would be a distinction.

Having members appointed by all parties, government and opposition, would be reasonable; it would be essentially a form of proportional representation, if the parties appointed representatives according to their seats in the Commons or votes in the election. However, this would have a similar makeup, and might be expected to echo the Commons. In that case, why not elect them outright?

business/church/charities/military or whatever

The problem here is, how do you decide who can appoint representatives? All businesses? Including one-battered-white-van-and-a-wrench cowboy plumbing outfits, or only big businesses? The CBI? Please, no! They’d have everyone working for peanuts, with no toilet breaks, overtime pay, holidays, sick leave or benefits, in 19th century workhouses, all in the interest of “competitiveness”, if they had their way, to judge from every public pronouncement they have made recently. And their members would continue to pay their directors Monopoly money sums while they complain about the weak economy, without realising the absurdity. But I digress.

Churches? Again, which ones? Only CofE? They represent only about 30% of the population from memory, although I can’t find the census results online at the moment. Would you include every cult and sect, from every faith? Even then, it would exclude atheists, agnostics, and anyone who does not follow a religion with a hierarchy and organisation.

Any system of appointment will inevitably disenfranchise many people, and therefore fail to address one of the main problems of the current House of Lords. Furthermore, allowing business into government is a slippery slope—just go and look up Fritz Hollings, the “Senator from Disneyland”, for a good example! In any case, the members of these different groups—businesses, chuches, charities, the military—can already vote, so I am unconvinced as to why they, arbitrarily, should be allowed an extra turn.

Essentially, I believe that the current House of Lords, whilst functioning on a practical level, is ideologically unacceptable and democratically unsound, and that it should therefore be reformed. Since the ostensible basis of government in the UK is that of representative democracy, and since I find any alternative method of populating the second chamber to be inferior to election, I have to recommend election as the best way to choose the membership. I also think that election should be on a different basis to that of the Commons, to avoid a simple reduplication of the first chamber.