The other change is that we have become the major amending chamber. This is another of Blair's unintended consequences: by running down the Commons; by using the guillotine on all Bills; by getting the Whips to secure rubber-stamped majorities, the government sends Bills to the Lords with scores of pages that have never been debated. We examine each line of each clause on each page: that is why in 2007 a total of 5,559 amendments were tabled in the Lords and 1,911 passed. It is not surprising that lobbyists have realised that the best place to secure change is in the Lords. We have just spent 12 days debating the Banking Bill. The new City minister, Lord Myners, one of the authors of the Bill, understood it better than any minister in the Commons, including the Chancellor.
What now? You cannot run the House of Lords like a gentleman's club when there is a shortage of gentlemen. The Lords must have a power to suspend or expel those members who offend against the code of conduct, the terms of which are being looked at by the Privileges Committee. Consultancy fees paid to peers to represent a particular interest in the House should not be allowed, and why should someone who doesn't pay taxes in our country be a member of its legislature? Such changes, while necessary, are fairly modest compared to a more fundamental reform, but there is little chance of this in the coming years. Each party is divided over reform and the Government is now too tired, too battered and too time-restricted to take it on. As Prime Minister, David Cameron will not want to get enmeshed in a constitutional wrangle. However, the fall-out of the recent scandal could lead to some useful incremental changes: disciplinary procedures for errant peers; expulsion of peers convicted of certain crimes; a statutory body set up to appoint the crossbench peers; and an informal agreement as to the proportion of non-political appointments compared to political ones. David Steel has reintroduced his Bill into the Lords, which would achieve much of this.
The House of Lords is a precious part of the British constitution: the bulwark against the overweening power of a party-dominated government. It provides a balance and an opportunity to reflect and reconsider. Its membership is quite unique: doctors, judges, soldiers, prison reformers, sailors, actors, economists, philosophers, novelists, publishers, farmers, historians, bishops, scientists, nurses, social workers, trade union leaders, businesspeople, TV presenters, ex-councillors, ex-MPs and ex-Cabinet Ministers, and there is a wider ethnic and gender mix than in the House of Commons. There is no other second chamber in the world that can draw upon such a range of experience. It was the Archbishop of York who on the floor of the House recently questioned the morality of the Government's economic policy. In what other country could that happen?
