Labour could make this huge change to democracy – if they keep their word

While studying history at school in Manchester, my teacher made the 1832 Great Reform Act personal for me and my classmates.

The 1832 Act is one of the milestones on our country’s democratic journey. It was far from perfect, but it extended the right to vote through creating 67 new constituencies.

So how did my teacher make it personal? By pointing out that before this Act, our great city, Manchester, the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, had absolutely no representation in Parliament. Not a single MP. We were outraged!

Now parliamentary constituencies are regularly redrawn to ensure fairness, such demographic insults are firmly in the past, right?

Well, actually no. Not at all. Far from it.

You see, half of Parliament – the House of Lords – goes about its very important business while blithely carrying on this sorry tradition.

Our current general election is rightly getting lots of airtime – that is how we select our MPs. But the House of Commons where they will sit is only half of our Parliament. The senior half, the half that has the final say, but still only half.

Every law has to be reviewed not just by MPs in the House of Commons but also by the peers who sit in the Lords – not a single one of whom is there as a representative of ordinary people. 

But there is hope for real change. 

In their manifesto, The Labour Party has confirmed they are committed to replacing the House of Lords with a chamber that is more representative.

Well, possibly. Maybe. Hopefully.

What they have committed to is removing the right to sit and vote from the remaining hereditary peers (the Dukes, Earls, Viscounts and so forth) and to introduce mandatory retirement at 80.

But, of course, these changes won’t make the slightest difference to the utter lack of legitimacy of the chamber.

And this lack of legitimacy is very real. It’s true for all of us, but if you live outside of London or the South, it’s even worse. 

You see, as of 2020, a mere 4.4% of House of Lords peers themselves live in the North West, where I grew up. 3.2% reside in the North East and the West Midlands, and 3% in the East Midlands.

It’s a different story down South, though. 23.7% of peers live in London alone, and 20.1% in the South East.

It seems that underrepresentation in Parliament is still alive and well. Just like it was for Manchester 200 years ago.

Detailed proposals for genuine reform of the Lords have been debated by governments and Parliament for over 100 years. But the end result is always the same. A small amount of tinkering here or there, and then nothing further.

Just look at the Labour Party in 1997, who promised to end the ‘right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords’, as well as reviewing the system for life Peers.

But that wasn’t all.

The manifesto commitment to proper change in addition to this couldn’t have been clearer: ‘This will be the first stage in a process of reform to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative.’

So how did that work out? Did proper reform to make the Lords ‘more democratic and representative’ happen?

Of course not. It never does.

I believe the continuing existence of the House of Lords in its current form is a daily reminder of our political system’s lack of trust in the rest of us

We’re stuck in a Groundhog Day cycle of hopeful promises for real reform that never really go anywhere.

Since then, we’ve just had more of the same. In June 2012 a House of Lords Reform Bill was introduced, promising sweeping and meaningful reforms to make the chamber more representative and legitimate.

Less than two months later, the Bill was abandoned.

The only change that happened in that Parliament was in 2014 when a long overdue new law came in allowing disgraced peers to be kicked out. 

I really hope Labour mean it – really mean it – this time, but history is not encouraging. We all know that failing to keep promises is a sure way to undermine trust and that is especially true in politics.

Recent research published by Sir John Curtice showed that trust in politicians has never been lower, stating: ‘The public is as doubtful as it has ever been about the trustworthiness and efficacy of the country’s system of government and the people who comprise it.’

I believe that the continuing existence of the House of Lords in its current form is a daily reminder of our political system’s lack of trust in the rest of us. There’s no fair representation, no source of legitimacy.

At the end of the day, any form of election to a second chamber would create a rival to the Commons – which, as amply demonstrated in the US, is a recipe for the political stalemate known as ‘gridlock’: When there are more bills being waited on than actively considered because rival parties control different parts of the legislature.

The other well travelled route when Lords reform comes up is selecting members on some kind of regional basis – but this well-intentioned idea founders on an unfortunate reality shown by polling: Namely, that people in England simply barely hold any political identification with their region.

But there is a clear solution.

A permanent rolling citizens’ assembly, selected like a jury by lottery from the lists we already have of all adults in the UK on the electoral register, was the most popular option according to a YouGov poll commissioned by the Sortition Foundation.

This pool of people would then be filtered so the members selected reflect the whole of UK society across a range of characteristics, such as age, gender, ethnicity, disability status and so on.

Members, if willing, would serve for two years, be paid the same as MPs and – just like with parental leave – have the right to return to their employer afterwards.

Such a ‘House of Citizens’ would be genuinely representative of the whole population.

Ordinary people have been trusted with big decisions since King Henry II first brought legal juries into our constitution 858 years ago in 1166. After eight centuries, juries have proven their worth and are widely trusted and respected. 

If Labour forms the next government and sticks to their promise on Lords reform this time around, they can deliver something that is both representative and popular.

And in doing so will be rightly remembered by future generations of school kids for finally fixing once and for all our hideously outdated political system.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jess.austin@metro.co.uk. 

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