Political Commentary
In defence of the noble breed Patrick Cosgrave _Med culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa. une of the severest strictures passed on journalists and public alike in Lord Massereene and Ferrard's new book (The Lords, Leslie Prewin, £4.75) is that they do not understand the importance, or even the nature, of the work of the House of Lords, because they neither attend nor study its proceedings. As soon e? 1 began to read I realised that I had never, 8!nce I began to write this column, analysed a jInR, le day's work in the Lords — even though
partial exculpation from His Lord ' • Vs wholly justified, if somewhat intern
Perately and repetitiously expressed, critinei,alrls because I have denounced the refusal the Prime Minister to make a clear state'ern of his policy on the award of hereditary Peerages, thus engaging secretively with his predecessor in an attempt wholly to change
constitutional character of the Second
• Ilamber of Parliament, and without public discussion. 14 The merits of the House of Lords," says bord Massereene, "are not generally realised ut they must surely be without parallel anywhere else in the world. I do not think I am eXafggerating when I say that England has to a great extent avoided the agony and strife Of ruthless power politics because of the ex!Renee of a second chamber not subservient to the popular vote and the demagogy that e,all go with it. It takes personal experience to "PPreciate fully the moral, intellectual and ilpetical wealth of the Upper House of the e other of Parliaments. The House of Lords 1111 probably best be described as a well of f`xPertise that any Government may call upon ,,er advice — a well of expertise formed by a `,orbbination of great learning, high culture g_nd lifelong practical experience in every 7,alk of life." And he adds, "Being a non!lected body, and' a body not having ultimate tel power, the Lords are to a great exha devoid of power motives and therefore ve no axe to grind. They can be said to be a 0„°,11se which offers a reliable genuineness of troion without too much toeing of the party tne, and a frankness and intellectual integn.Y rarely found elsewhere, which is an influable asset in the exact evaluation of afan" of state . . experts may be found on Ment.Y su-bject likely to be brought before Parlia
With every single word of that I go along
in principle. That is how it ought to be. i„"at is how it once was. That is how it still is, iigeneral, and on the smaller matters of poora. But the grand reputation of the House Lords as defender of the constitution against the encroachments of the executive, a_nd the often placidly dimwitted support of ?loose encroachments by the Commons, can despite Lord Massereene's fervour, be OY longer sustained. Before delving into this .10etter, however, it ought to be said that any , oceivable or canvassed reform of the Upper rieuse which has so far come to my notice WPIlld create a distinctly worse situation. The Wilson reforms of 1968, which the Conservative front bench of the day so pusillanirtli,°..uslY supported, were utterly destructive of the role of the Lords as a chamber of revision: ev Commons could not have been compelled thi,n to re-examine clauses of Bills overe,,c?Ivn by the Lords, however painstaking acute their reasons. And the gentler prospuusuals put forward by Lord Massereene — elecilleanst his plans for introducing an elective would be certain in the hands of a "ernrnent or Commons committee to turn
into instruments for the extension of prime ministerial patronage and influence in and over the Upper House.
Despite all its hard and intelligent work of legislative revision, and the substantial amount of valuable legislation it has initiated in recent years, the Lords has not been significantly forward in doing its main duty — the defence of the public interest against a rapacious Government when the Commons is cowed or quiescent through the application of the Whips. Both the Burmah Oil War Damage Act — which denied to the owners compensation to which the courts had decided they were entitled — and the Labour Act which reversed a judicial decision in the Rookes v Barnard case, were pieces of retrospective legislation overturning not merely individual judgements, but principles of English law. The Lords had it in their power to act, and did not. The GLC Postponement of Elections Act was one passed through the Commons for blatantly party political purposes, and denied established rights to the GLC electors. The Lords had it in their power to act, and did not. The single example which Lord Massereene can adduce of the modern lords defying a modern government is the case, in June 1968, of their defeat of the Wilson's Government's resolution for the imposition of mandatory sanctions on Rhodesia, on the impeccable grounds that the British Government could not be allowed to hand over democratic sovereignty to a non-democratic body. Even with this example in his hand. Lord Massereene spends many anxious pages insisting that it did not do much damage to the Government's policy, really, and that therefore the lords could not be accused of .deliberately undermining that policy. For so stentorian a defender of his noble colleagues, Lord Massereene is curously pussy-footed on this matter, and the sources of his uncertainty, since they are the sources of uncertainty of so many in the Conservative Party who approve of the lords but fear to defend them, need to be exposed.
The blunt fact of the matter is that few prominent politicians can bring themselves open ly to defend the hereditary principle, however well it works; and however integral it can be
shown to be to such operations-of the Upper House as they find desirable. Moreover, their embarrassment in this respect is increased by a conviction — for which there is no evidence — that public opinion would be hostile to any defence of the status quo in the Lords.
"Though the hereditary element may be composed of admirable people," said Lord Carrington in 1968, "most of our fellow countrymen do not see why we should be put in the special position of being able to reverse or delay legislation from the elected House. Some months ago your Lordships decided by a small majority to reject an Order on Rhodesia which was introduced by the Government. We may have been right or we may have been wrong — there were powerful arguments on both sides — but in no comment, either in the newspapers or on the radio, on the television or in private conversation, did I hear any discussion of the merits of that decision. The debate centred entirely upon whether or not the unelected hereditary Chamber was entitled to reject legislation which had been passed by the elected Chamber." Aside from the fact that the Order was not legislation, and aside from the fact that Lord Carrington's selection both of newspapers and conversational companions seems unusually limited for so gregarious a man, this is a rare example of lack of political will: if discussion of the case so overwhelmingly ignored the essence of the matter in dispute, then part of the reason was that Lord Carrington's party were so slow in putting forward that case. But it is easy to see, when so strong a character as Lord Carrington is reduced to trepidation at the apparent existence of a hostile public opinion, why the Lords should be so slow in performing the duty for which they exist, and so mealymouthed about defending themselves when they do perform it. What, in any event, is wrong with the hereditb.ry principle, particularly when the hereditary content of the House of Lords can be leavenld with the milk of the life peerage? The:test of an institution is whether it works; and the House of Lords works perfectly well below its highest possible level. In the performancb of its work, moreover, the hereditary peers do rather better than their supposedly more desirable life companions. From the 1968 White Paper on reform, we find that the "working membership" of the House (the total membership is above 1,000) is around 300, and average daily attendance below 250. No less than 173 life peers and peers of first creation are not working members, even though they are supposedly created to help with the work. Contrary to press fantasy, then, the hereditary peers are quite as active as the life peers, particularly as the number theoretically available for duty is substantially reduced if we take account of , the leave of absence system, which enables a peer to renounce active attendance for a parliamentary session. Moreover, there is no evidence that the other argument against the hereditary peers — that they constitute an automatically available army of Tory backwoodsmen — stands up. If it did, the Opposition could surely have mustered a larger majority on Rhodesia sanctions than nine, And in any event the figures of the 1967-8 session show that of peers who attended less than five per cent of sittings — conceivably backwoodsmen — only seventy-nine were Tories, as against 78 who took no whip; while among the 216 peers attending between five per cent and one third of sittings only 110 were Tories.
There is, then, no practical, as opposed to theoretical egalitarian, case for changing the status quo in the Lords. The pity of it is that those of us who wish to defend the jUpper House must do so largely because we fear what might come to take its place. How much finer it would be to defend an institution that stood ready to do its duty on the merits of a case, without regard to phantoms of public opinion, the pressure of the executive, or the fear of ridicule.
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