Ted Heath's Poodle
By CHRISTOPHER HOLLIS
WHATEVER the Socialists and the Liberals may decide to do, there is no reason to suppose that the Government's proposals for reform of the House of Lords will not have a fairly easy passage to the statute book. But what will happen then? There will doubtless be no difficulty in find- ing a distinguished little regiment of women who Will be prepared to disturb Lord Glasgow's privacy in the library, and one or two of them may well add a touch of life to their lordships' and their ladyships' debates, but no one can pretend that their presence will solve the essential problem.
That problem is, as everybody agrees, that the Socialists quite reasonably object to an Upper House that has a permanent and overwhelming Conservative majority. The Conservative cohorts, they argue, can be called up to delay allegedly hasty Socialist legislation. There is no possibility of any cohorts being called up to delay hasty Conservative legislation. It is not a fair bargain.
Now, if there had been some comprehensive Plan for abolishing or limiting the number of hereditary peers—whether on Lord Salisbury's formula or another—reform might have offered a prospect of a House that had some sort of equality between the parties. But, if all the hereditary peers are to remain members, then, to make a balance, it will be necessary to create about 700 life peers to find, incidentally, about 700 Socialists who are willing to accept life peerages from a Con- servative Prime Minister. The Government has never given any indication what sort of number of life peers it proposes to create. But obviously if it created on this scale the House would be turned into a joke. As Lord Lucas suggested, they would have to transfer their place of meeting to Harringay Arena.
Yet, if the Government creates on a smaller scale, then there is no reason why the Socialists should accept the arrangement. They will say, 'All that you have done is to create a new House with a perhaps slightly smaller, but still overwhelming Conservative majority. Thank you for nothing.' They will not accept the new House and, what is more, they will feel it necessary, when they come to power, to make some overt step to show that they do not accept it. What will they do?
They may abolish it. They may content them- selves with abolishing the hereditary right and then create sufficient Socialist life peers to make a balance of the parties. Or possibly some bold spirits may argue, 'The Tories kept their per- Manent majority for generations and then reformed the House unilaterally. Therefore we are entitled to reform unilaterally in our turn. Let us make a new House—say, of trade union leaders—with a permanent Socialist majority, dedicated to the prevention of future Tory attempts to destroy the trade unions' rights.' Wherever things finally rest, it is certain that the Government has started a movement which will not end with this present measure of reform.
The English are almost dotty about titles. When they come across a lord they could hardly make more of him, even if he were a dog, but it would be a mistake to imagine that because they respect lords they therefore respect the House of Lords. Lords like being lords, but they do not like going to the House of Lords, and in the same way the public gets excited when it sees a lord but does not get in the least excited about the House of Lords. Mr. Henry Fairlie was quite right in his recent article in the Spectator when he argued that the reason why the public took so much interest in the recent observations of Lord Altrin- cham was almost entirely because he was a lord. The fact that he does not go to the House of Lords obviously made no difference one way or the other, nor indeed has recent interest in the Marquis of Winchester been centred exclusively on his activities as a legislator. Lords will go on being treated as lords—that is to say, being treated as dogs—whether there is a House of Lords or not, but it would be a mistake to imagine from their popularity that there will be much public concern about the fate of that House.
The reason for this unconcern is, as I say, the patent fact that the House has never for years been doing the job which it pretended to do. The case for an Upper House is that there should be some check on overhasty legislation by the Corn-
mons—some means of appealing back in emergency from Philip drunk to Philip sober. But the present Chamber clearly does not perform this function. It is simply Ted Heath's poodle. When- ever, since the war, the Conservative Party machine has wished to get the Lords to express an opinion, then, whether the criticism to be rejected has come from the Left or the Right—television, capital punishment or steel—the machine has never had any difficulty in obtaining a comfort- able, mechanical party majority. Over the last 150 years in general the House of Lords has had in its voting on social questions a record of disgrace that cannot be paralleled by any legislature in the world. A House of Lords with a mechanical Socialist majority would clearly be no improve- ment on this, nor am I sure that a House of Lords evenly balanced between Socialist and Conserva- tive politicians would be much better either. Many of the worst things that are done are things upon which the two party machines agree. The only House of Lords that could really justify itself would be a House composed of persons of stand- ing who are independent of both parties. Would it be possible to have a nominated House in which the sole disqualification for membership would be ever to have sat in the House of Commons?
In practice I must confess that it does not seem very probable that we shall get any general agree- ment on any half-way house between leaving things as they are and abolition.
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