Who Are the Politically Active Peers?

By SYDNEY D. BAILEY*

THE difficulty of constituting a Second Chamber in a democratic state is well known. If the composition of a Second Chamber corresponds exactly to opinion in the Lower Chamber, the Second Chamber tends to be written off as superfluous; if it differs, it is likely to be attacked as obstructive. The dilemma is a real one in a unitary state, and it may account for the fact that more and more countries are deciding to manage with single-chamber legislatures. Norway has for long had a modified unicameral system; the New Zealand Legislative Council disappeared in 1951 and has not been replaced; Denmark abolished its Landsting in June of this year; and Finland, Greece, Israel, Luxembourg, and Turkey are among countries which do without Second Chambers.

Why is it that, in spite of this apparent trend in favour of unicameralism, the House of Lords is generally accepted to be a useful body ? Its formal powers are severely limited by the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, and its composition is not of the kind which would naturally spring to mind if one were starting from scratch. In spite of the Preamble to the first Parliament Act forty-two years ago, which declared that it was " intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of a hereditary basis," the House of Lords has remained a substantially hereditary chamber—at any rate on paper. Approximately 840 Peers are entitled to sit and vote in the House of Lords, and about 25 Peers who are minors will qualify for membership when they reach the age of twenty-one. Only a minority of those who are entitled to do so attend i regularly. About sixty per cent. take the Oath during the course of a Parliament, but on an ordinary day there are unlikely to be more than one-tenth of the total number present.

Composition of the House of.Lords 31st July, 1953 Peers of the Blood Royal ... • - ... 4 Archbishops and Bishops ... ... ... ... 26 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (including those who have retired) ... ... ... ... ... ... 13 Scottish Representative Peers . 8 • • • • 16 Irish Representative Peers ... .•• ••• 5 Other Peers, including minors ... ... ... 799 863

* Mr. Bailey is the Secretary of the Hansard Society and Editor of Parliamentary Affairs.

The extent to which a Peer is active in the work of the House of Lords can in part be discovered from published sources. 'The names of those who take the Oath are recorded in the Journal, and the same source indicates which Peers are present each day and which Peers take part in any divisions. Division lists are alsb printed in Hansard, and the columns of Hansard show which Peers speak in debate. One can try to discover how active a Peer is either by counting the number of times he has attended, the number of times he has spoken, or the number of times he has voted.

During the first two sessions of the present Parliament (that is to say, from 31st October, 1951, to 29th October, 1953), there. were 31 divisions in the House of Lords. The average ntimber of Peers taking part in a division was 78; in four divisions more than 100 Peers took part. Three of the votes which attracted more than 100 Peers were on the National Health Service Bill, and the fourth—curiously enough—was a division at the end of a foreign affairs debate. Altogether 296 Peers voted at least once. During the same two-year period, about 65 other Peers spoke in debate at least once, though they did not vote. The 296 Peers who voted consisted of 2 Bishops and 3 Lords of Appeal in Ordinary who do not normally vote in matters of party controversy, 51 Labour Peers, 14 Liberals, 8 Independents, and 218 Peers who can be regarded as Conservatives.

It is probably safe to assume that most of the routine day- to-day work of the House of Lords is done by those Peers who voted at least 15 times during the two-year period. This test is passed by 65 Peers, 43 of them Conservatives and 22 Labour. Their ranks. were as follows: Rank Conservative Dukes ...

Marquesses 2 Earls 11 2 Viscounts 7 2 Barons

• • • • • •

23 18 43 22 Are there any special characteristics shared by these 65 Peers ? Do they correspond with the picture' of the House of Lords drawn by the newspaper cartoonists ? Are the Con- servatives all company directors or landowners or both, the Socialists all retired trade union officials ? Are most of these 65 Peers first creations ? How many of them have served in the House of Commons ? Are they younger or older than MPs ? In the rest of this article I deal only with the 65 Peers who have voted at least 15 times during the present Parliament.

As far as the 22 Labour Peers are concerned, they are nearly all first creations; only two of them inherited their titles. On the Conservative side, by contrast, 10 are first creations and 33 inherited their titles; of these 33 hereditary Conservative Peers, 8 are sons of first creations.

The average age of the 43 Conservative Peers is fifty-seven, compared with sixty-five for Labour Peer's. The active Peers in the House of Lords are, on an average, older than members of the House of Commons; but, as in the Lower House, Labour Peers are older than Conservatives.

As.regards formal education, the pattern for the Conserva- tives seems to be fairly standard. Almost all of them attended a privately-owned school and went from there to a university, one of the Inns of Court, a medical college, or an institution for training officers for one of the fighting services. Among Labour Peers there is more variety. Eight or nine seem not .to have had the opportunity of higher education, and 3 or 4 began to earn their livings as manual workers while still in their early 'teens. Nevertheless, more than half—as far as one can discover from published sources—attended privately-owned schools; and at least 8, and probably more, went on to a university or other institution of higher education. One-half of the 22 Labour Peers and slightly more than one-third of the 43 Conservatives show a direct interest in local affairs, either by having served as elected or co-opted members of local authorities or as magistrates. Labour The number of company directors is higher among Labour Peers and lower among Conservatives than one might expect; the figures seem to be 3 and 17 respectively. A common feature among the 43 Conservatives is to have had a military or naval background. More than half have served at some time or another in the Regular Army, and almost all the others served in the armed forces in one or both the World Wars or have been active members of the Territorial Army. At least 8 of the 22 Labour Peers appear to have served in the armed forces. Apart from service in the armed forces, 6 of the Labour Peers and 6 of the Conservatives come from professional occupations.

It is, perhaps, surprising to discover that only one of the Labour Peers was a full-time trade union official before his elevation to the peerage. Of the 30 Peers of first creation, 20 of them Labour and 10 Conservative, 14 and 4 respectively served in the House of Commons or on the headquarters staff of a political party before being made Peers. In addition, 4 other Conservative Peers and one other Labour Peer served in the House of Commons before succeeding to their titles.

Is it to be considered an advantage or a disadvantage that only a minority of Peers is active in the routine work of the House ? There are arguments both ways. Bagehot, writing eighty-six years ago, considered that the " real indifference to their duties of most peers " was " a great defect." Viscount Samuel, by contrast, summed up the present position neatly in a recent debate. " If all the 800 [Peers] were to attend, the institution would collapse at once. . . . We are saved from that by the non-attendance of the majority of the members of your Lordships' House. . . . The working of the House is made possible only by the absenteeism of a large number of members, and we should be grateful to those who grace the meetings of this House by their absence."