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Why does the house of lords need further reform?

  1. REPRESENTATION
  • An elected House of Lords would be more democratic and could be more descriptively representative.
  • The Lords is not only undemocratic, but also unrepresentative.
  • As of March 2017, there were 207 female Peers in the House of Lords, 25% of the 794-sitting total, up slightly from 181 in 2012.
  • A report released by Parliament in June 2016, claims that there are only 51 ethnic minority members of the House of Lords (6.4%) compared with roughly 13% of the population.
  1. SIZE
  • The regular appointment of new life peers has also led to the House becoming unmanageably large.
  • There are currently 804 members of the House of Lords, but only around 400 actual seats in the Lords chamber.
  • The Lords is currently the second largest Upper House in the world, and it is the only upper house in any bicameral legislature to be larger than its respective lower house.
  • Under the House of Lords Reform Act (2014), peers can now choose to resign from their role, however, as the PM has the power of patronage, and there is no limit on the number of peers in the House of Lords, the Upper House is likely to keep growing.
  1. POWER
  • Since the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, the House of Lords has only been able to delay, rather than block legislation.
  • The Lords can make amendments, but, if the Commons votes to overturn them, their only option is to delay the bill for a year.
  • Since 1949, only four laws have passed without the consent of the Lords.
  • In March 2017 peers made two significant amendments to the European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill (2017), however, after both amendments were swiftly overturned in the Commons, the Lords accepted the bill in its original form.
  • The Parliament Act (1911) also gives the House of Commons ‘financial privilege’, meaning the House of Lords cannot block ‘money bills’ that authorise expenditure or taxation.
  • When the Lords amended the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act (2012), the Government cited the Commons’ ‘financial privilege’ to simply dismiss the amendments.