The long wait for Lords reform
A Queen's speech bill on Lords reform will never be law; it is an indictment on New Labour that half our legislature is unelected Wednesday 18 November 2009
(photo)
Labour's draft bill on Lords reform in the Queen's speech has no chance of becoming law.
What began with a constitutional bang will end with a constitutional whimper. Whether more by inheritance (from John Smith) than by choice, Tony Blair began the New Labour era with a fusillade of reforms that changed the British political landscape forever. A new parliament in Scotland, an assembly in Wales, self-rule in northern Ireland, a mayoralty in London, the introduction of proportional representation for almost all UK elections bar the House of Commons – it amounted to a quiet revolution that may well endure as New Labour's most permanent legacy.
In the Queen's speech there was only a shadow of that former ambition.
There will be a constitutional reform bill which will aim to tidy up a few remaining loose ends, focused on the House of Lords. It will abolish the absurd "byelections" among hereditary peers – under which as one blueblood dies his fellow aristocrats get to choose which hereditary takes his place – so that this most exclusive of franchises will no longer be able to renew itself in perpetuity. It will also allow for expulsion of peers who've been guilty of egregious dodginess and allow those in ermine to renounce their titles (the so-called Mandelson clause that would enable the first secretary to quit the Lords for the Commons).
It doesn't sound like much, but at least that bill has a chance to get through. No such luck for the draft bill on Lords reform. On the plus side, at least this bill will – at long last – set out Labour's policy on the second chamber, finally answering all those fiddly questions about composition, electoral method, length of terms and the rest. But on the downside, it has no chance of becoming law. The government is not even