Politics Home Article | The Lords should not be able to block legislation backed by MPs

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This article was commissioned by the Total Politics Impact team.

Reform of the House of Lords is something many governments have been toying with for over a hundred years.

A second chamber, where leaders in religion sit beside crony donors and, until recently, those who have been lucky in the lottery of life, is rapidly becoming an anachronism in a modern democracy.

We are blessed to have many impressive peers who work hard and have immense experience. However, the fact remains that this House is entirely undemocratic. It’s a job for life unless you have done something very bad.

On top of this, there are no rules concerning the governance of the House. There are gentlemen’s agreements about allowing through government legislation. But these are unenforceable conventions.

The Lords pride themselves on being self-governing, run by a few good chaps. The Speaker cannot curtail speeches or insist on the grouping of amendments. Debates under this system can, literally, go on forever.

During the passage of the Assisted Dying Bill, twice given backing by the Commons, a handful of Peers, many very recently rejected by the electorate, simply blocked progress of the bill.

By tabling 1,200 amendments and talking for hours on end, a full 16 days of debate were had with no end result. And the worst thing was, these peers did not break any rules; it was all entirely legitimate.

Opponents in the Lords claimed they were being constructive. But their tactics meant there was no opportunity for amendments to be adopted. Let’s be clear – they were simply ideologically opposed to the principle of assisted death.

This bill is the safest of its kind – I say this having worked in palliative care for 30 years.

Peers have every right to disagree with the legislation. Many people do. However, they have no right to overturn the will of the elected chamber and impose their beliefs on the British people.

We have, since this thoroughly undemocratic moment that all of Parliament should be ashamed of, set up an APPG to reform the House of Lords.

We see this in two stages.

First, the Lords need to adopt rules around their governance to prevent filibustering. This means giving primacy to the Speaker, who can set speech limits, group amendments and rule on other procedural issues.

Secondly, we need to reform the structure of the Lords. This government has already thrown out the hereditary peers and is set to introduce retirement and participation rules.

My feeling is that a system where religious leaders and party donors get to legislate is not fit for purpose.

The government should establish a national commission of citizens and experts who can form a consensus around what an alternative upper chamber could look like.

Ultimately, we must do all that we can to prevent a gross abuse of power by unelected officials from ever happening again.

It appears that the handful of peers who were so strongly against the Assisted Dying Bill may have actually enabled the death of their own chamber.