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Venetia Caine and Philip Wood suggest ways to reorganise the upper house, while Michael Meadowcroft points to a report that offered practical solutions back in 2007. Plus a letter from Chris Rennard
I’m sure that your editorial (25 December) is right that one of the reasons reforming the House of Lords is taking so long under this government is that there is no clear path ahead, after abolition of the hereditary peers. A fundamental principle is to retain the revising role of the upper chamber. To that end, it needs great expertise. It should, of course, be largely elected, but that would not necessarily ensure that expertise. It should also not be too large and should have continuity.
So here is what I suggest should happen: each parliamentary constituency should be joined with an adjacent one, and those 300-plus each elect one member. These would constitute three-quarters of the upper house. They would have their places for 15 years, with elections of one-third every five years, the initial and second thirds to be decided by lot.
The final quarter of the chamber, so just over 100, would be appointed by a committee of the previously appointed members, each also to be appointed for 15 years, with similar transitional arrangements, and the first set to be appointed by the current independent lords. The given proportions of these would be selected from various areas, such as sciences, arts, teaching, former top civil servants, etc. And I couldn’t care less what the members of the upper chamber are called.
Venetia Caine
Glastonbury, Somerset
Your editorial outlined just how undemocratic and easily abused the House of Lords is, even if the proposed changes were to be enacted. I suggest we abolish it and turn it into a considerably smaller, proportionately elected senate with equal powers to the lower house to represent our Celtic nations and English super-regions within a new “devo max” federal architecture.
This could be part of a modern written constitution to sweep away our antiquated and overcentralised status quo. Keir Starmer, wrongly, lays the blame for our ineffective performance as a country on our civil service, when in reality it is our 19th-century governing structures that hold us back.
A commission of experts in social, political and economic sciences chaired by Prof Danny Dorling could be tasked to work out the detail. The brief would be to look at effective elements of systems elsewhere; appropriate checks and balances at all levels to pluralise power; how to generate strong participatory communities; proportional representation at all levels, including the lower house; a federal president separate from the executive to chair the senate and consensually modify the constitution when needed, alongside a constitutional court. This role could leave the monarch with a purely ceremonial function and hopefully allow a future seamless transition to a republic.
All these structures and functions could also accommodate an organic, bottom-up, widespread use of citizens’ assemblies/sortition for important issues. It is crucial to resurrect genuine localism and grassroots participation.
Philip Wood
Kidlington, Oxfordshire
There is no need to start from scratch to determine what is required to reform the Lords. In 2007, the School of Public Policy at University College London set up an all-party group of senior politicians to analyse the issue. Its comprehensive report considered the constitutional difficulties, including the key relationship between the two houses of parliament, and proposed practical solutions. The report even includes a draft bill, all in 53 pages. I have always been puzzled why this key document languishes on the shelf instead of being accepted by all concerned. Why reinvent the wheel?
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
Your editorial is right to criticise the timidity of Labour’s plans for changes to the House of Lords. There is no good reason, as you suggest, that we cannot be given an appropriate parliamentary title without being described as lords. Nor should any new peers be appointed for life. It is a source of frustration that the writing on the wall for hereditary members was not just in Labour’s 2024 manifesto but also in that of 1997.
Prior to Labour’s victory that year, I worked with Pat McFadden as joint secretaries of the Lib-Lab commission planning for constitutional reform in the event of a Tory defeat in that election. Much was agreed and delivered, including devolution to Scotland and Wales, with elections on a proportional basis. But major long-term failures of Tony Blair’s government related to making the Lords more democratic and holding a referendum on electing MPs by proportional representation.
I suggested that a referendum could have covered both reforms. With Blair’s support, such a referendum would have been won and the country would be in a much better place today, without much of the agony of the last quarter of a century.
Chris Rennard
Liberal Democrat, House of Lords
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Here’s how we could reform the Lords for the 21st century | Letters
