Nick Clegg describes the House of Lords as "an affront to democracy" and wants it to be wholly or mainly
elected. Without this, he maintains, the second chamber lacks legitimacy. His
view is neatly summed up in the slogan "the people who make the laws of
the land should be elected by people who have to obey the laws of the
land".
But democracy is a complex phenomenon with
several other dimensions that need to be recognised. Election is a crucial
element, of course. But we also want our democracy to be representative,
accessible, open and responsive. All these must be encompassed within our
parliamentary system as a whole, though not necessarily all in each house.
Take the question of representativeness.
Political parties tend to be male and pale, and they have tended to choose
people like them. So certain sections of the community have been
under-represented, notably women, the black and minority ethnic communities and
disabled people. And the effect is worse in the elected Commons than in the
appointed Lords.
With women, the Commons has now at last caught up
with the Lords: the proportion of women is 22% in both chambers. Four per cent
of MPs come from an ethnic minority compared with 5% for the Lords, versus 12%
in the UK. There does not appear to be any data on the number of disabled
people in parliament.
But that's on the surface. Qualitatively, the
Lords is streets ahead. Compared with the Commons, women are at the forefront
in the Lords. Thirty are in top positions. The Lord Speaker is a woman, as was
her predecessor. The leader of the opposition and the government chief whip are
women. So was the convener of the crossbench peers until she became Lord
Speaker. Four of the past six leaders of the Lords have been women.
The two chambers are quite different in attitudes
as well. As a blind peer, I know from personal experience how genuinely
welcoming the House of Lords is to disabled people. The authorities assist me
with the cost of employing an assistant who can guide me around to unfamiliar
places, introduce me to people at receptions and help me get papers off the web
that are essential to my effective participation in the business of the house.
They have allocated me an office close to the
peers' entrance and a seat in the chamber that are very easy to find (I don't
know whether to feel grateful or guilty when a fellow peer is asked to move
over).
They have rigged up a little table on the back of
the bench in front, as on an airline, for me to rest my Braille laptop on when
speaking, and the door-keepers will tap me on the shoulder when my time is
about to run out. Contrast this with the stories of disabled MPs being mocked for the way they speak or
move about.
Even from the quantitative point of view, the
figures for the whole house may not tell the whole story. Of the 61 people
appointed by the House of Lords appointments commission since it was set up in
2000, 22 are women, 13 are from a minority ethnic background and six are
disabled, which equates to 36%, 21% and 10% respectively. These figures are
much better than for the Commons. So if the Lords is mainly elected with
candidates coming through political parties, it seems likely that it will be
much less diverse than if it continues to be appointed, especially if the
appointments commission has a much enhanced role.
From the standpoints of accessibility, openness
and responsiveness, the unelected House of Lords is also much more democratic.
Organisations representing the needs of the poor and dispossessed find it much
easier to have their views heard and accepted than in the House of Commons,
which is much more politicised and where the whips can be relied on to see off any
opposition.
Given the amount of controversy the government's
proposals have aroused, there must be a question mark over whether they can get
elections through. That being the case, I think they would do well to be
thinking in terms of a Plan B.
I have long thought that a good way of recruiting
to the House of Lords that was really representative of society would be to
have people elected by a series of electoral colleges representing the
different branches of civil society – the law, medicine, the arts, the
services, education, sport etc.
I now think of this as a much more broadly based
and democratic appointments system. The colleges would nominate and the
appointments commission would do the actual appointing. This is the way to get
a fairer deal for disabled people, and a better democracy for us all.
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