FEDERAL UNION

PO Box 29113 London SW1P 2WF

info@federalunion.org.uk
www.federalunion.org.uk

Reform of the House of Lords – a submission by Federal Union

1. Federalism divides political power between levels of government to achieve the best
combination of democracy and effectiveness. It is not the bureaucratic centralisation
of popular myth.

2. Federal Union was founded in 1938 to campaign for federalism for the UK, Europe
and the world. It has argued since then that democracy and the rule of law should
apply to states as well as within them.

Summary

3. This paper argues that some members of the upper house should be elected by
members of the devolved bodies and regional assemblies in the UK, to provide a
democratic element and to provide a brake on the process of centralisation.

The proposals in the White Paper

4. The proposals in the White Paper serve to strengthen the power of patronage and the
dependence of national political life on the Westminster system. At a time when
patronage is increasingly criticised and the Westminster system decreasingly
respected, we think this is a mistake.

5. Specifically, the White Paper would strengthen the powers of those institutions
already located in Westminster. Four fifths of the members of the new upper house
would be appointed, and only one fifth elected.

6. Worryingly, three fifths of the members of the new upper house would be appointed
by political parties. The White Paper is silent on how each party might carry this out.
This points the way to a much strengthened power of patronage by the national
structures of the political parties. This is hardly what the country needs. Political
institutions can play a considerable role in shaping the political culture: the White
Paper suggests that British political culture should become even more centralised than
it is already.

Federal Union’s proposal

7. Federal Union argues that the government should accept the principle of the indirect
election of some members of the upper house by the devolved bodies and regional
assemblies.

8. The nature of governance in the United Kingdom has been transformed dramatically
by the creation of devolved parliaments and assemblies. In a number of ways, the UK
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now has some of the features of a federal system rather than a unitary state. This
should be reflected in the legislative institutions at the UK level itself.

9. There is a distinctive interest that devolved bodies have in UK legislation, separate

and in addition to the interest of the citizens they might represent. Under our
increasingly complex constitutional arrangements, decisions taken in Westminster
have a considerable bearing on the actions – and freedom of action – of the devolved
bodies. Without any kind of input into those Westminster decisions, an important
interest goes unrepresented.

10. For example, there is no political forum where the Mayor of London can debate the
future of London transport with the UK government. As a result, the debate has been
forced into the law courts.

11. Paragraph 41 in the White Paper treats the argument for indirectly electing the
members of the upper house merely as a means of selecting them, rather than
reflecting on the fundamental transformation in the British political system that is
currently taking place. In particular, its dismissal of the arguments in favour of
indirect election are feeble.

12. The argument that England does not yet have regional assemblies is absurd: they are
in the process of being created and the aim of reforming the upper house should be to
settle something for the future.

13. Equally, to assert that the devolved bodies themselves have not asked for this power is
also meaningless. Some of them – as noted in the previous paragraph – do not yet
exist. And for those that do, they are still fairly new and so cannot yet be supposed to
have explored all their powers and potential. And furthermore, there are powers that
those devolved bodies have asked for and been refused: the government should not
pretend that the absence of a demand from the devolved bodies is a stumbling block.

14. Members of the upper house, elected on a specific regional mandate, will be able to
play an important scrutinising role to resist centralisation where it is not needed. The
Maastricht treaty introduced the concept of subsidiarity – that the power to deal with
an issue should is held by institutions at a level as low as possible, and only as high as
necessary. The United Kingdom needs this approach as much as does the European
Union.

15. At present, and under the proposals in the White Paper, there is no resistance to the
inevitable attempts by the centre to accrete new powers. Entrenching the influence of
the sub-national levels of government in the Westminster legislative process would
provide an important and much-needed brake on centralisation.

16. It should be noted that indirectly elected members of the upper house would have an
undeniable democratic legitimacy, but would not have a mandate that competed with
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that of the House of Commons. The suggestion that is often made – by Lord Irvine on
24 January, for example – that elected members of the upper house must necessarily
compete with the lower house is simply not correct. The role of the general election
in determining the political colour of the government and the legislative programme
that followed would not be affected.

Nominated members

17. The fiasco of the appointment of “People’s Peers” shows how carefully the
procedures for appointment must be drawn up. Any appointed members of the upper
house must be selected in order to make it more representative of the diversity of the
United Kingdom and not more representative of the Westminster interests that already
dominate.

Conclusion

18. The completion of the reform of the House of Lords is an important opportunity to
extend democracy and – specifically – to reverse the process of centralisation that has
done so much harm to British political life. The indirect election of some members of
the upper house by members of the national and regional assemblies and parliaments
would achieve this. Sadly, the White Paper does not propose this course of action.
Federal Union suggests that it should be rethought so that it does.

28.1.02