Local Democracy Notepad

The House of Lords Reform Draft Bill and accompanying White Paper were presented to Parliament by Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg on Tuesday 17 May.

The documents set out long-awaited options for a reformed House of Lords.

The Bill is grounded in a smaller, 80%-elected House, retaining (controversially) the Bishops. The White Paper indicates that a 100% elected upper House has not been ruled out.

One striking feature of the proposals is that they have nothing at all to say about the functions of Westminster’s upper house. In fact, the White Paper’s summary of the proposals states that “[t]he reformed House of Lords would have the same functions as the current House. It would continue to scrutinise legislation, hold the Government to account and conduct investigations.”

So the proposed changes would be in form, not in substance.Now assuming that Parliament’s upper chamber has a role in equipping democracy to deliver sustainable development, is this enough to do the job?

Surely not.

A largely-elected upper house would better reflect a commitment to democracy. But in giving more thought to the composition of the House of Lords than what it might actually do, there’s a huge gap in the proposals.

One important role played by the second chamber is to act as a partial counter-weight to the short-termism that can be built into Commons decision-making as a result of electoral cycles.

Providing for 15-year maximum terms for elected peers (as the Bill and White Paper do) is a sort of half-way house that doesn’t buy overnight cialis go far enough to ensure that the House of Lords is fully equipped to bring long-term thinking to parliament.

Lords reform needs to focus on substance as much as process.

15-year terms are relatively better for long-termism than 4 or 5-year terms (and relatively better for accountability than unelected life or hereditary peers). But whether they go far enough to instil a culture of long-termism (a clumsy term I know; but it’s the opposite of short-termism) is at best a moot point.

Whilst Peers are often comfortable looking to the past for inspiration, they need to be equipped to look to the future: to think and act on long-term perspectives; and to help to ensure that a sense for the needs of future generations of people and voters, not just the present, permeates our system of parliamentary democracy.

Now funnily enough… this sentiment is quite close to the agreed objective of a new Alliance for Future Generations which I’m quite involved in (you can read more about it here).

Members of the Alliance are individuals and organisations who have aligned themselves with the objective of ensuring “that long-termism and the needs of future generations are brought into the heart of

UK democracy and policy processes, in order to safeguard the earth and secure intergenerational justice “.

If House of Lords reform can help to counter the short-termism of representative democracy, it will make a lasting contribution not only to deepening UK democracy, but also to equipping it to deliver sustainable development.