Parliament: Elected House of Lords

Lord Norton of Louth Excerpts

Wednesday 10th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Norton of Louth]

My Lords, if there is a change in the composition of this House with Members being elected, then that has consequences for the power of the House—a fact recognised by those responsible for the passage of the Parliament Bill in 1911. A Cabinet committee in 1907 rejected a reform of the composition of the House because it accepted that this would strengthen the House of Lords against the Commons. As Chris Ballinger notes in a forthcoming article on the Parliament Act 1911, members of the Cabinet were reluctant to consider going further. As he writes:

“Any reform to composition would have augmented the power of the Upper House, and thereby its ability to impede the enactment of the social welfare policies to which the Liberals had become committed.”

I also remind the House of the resolution passed by the House of Commons on 26 June 1907, which stated that,

“in order to give effect to the will of the people as expressed by their elected representatives, it is necessary that the power of the other House to alter or reject Bills passed by this House should be so restricted by Law as to secure that within the limits of a single Parliament the final decision of the Commons shall prevail. [Official Report, Commons, 27/6/07; col. 1523.]

In other words, the supremacy of the Commons rested on its Members being the elected representatives of the people—that is what they were asserting. There were no elected representatives of the people in the other Chamber. Once one has Members elected to the second Chamber, then the rationale for the Parliament Act disappears. The Government may seek to maintain it, but they will have problems maintaining their claims for its legitimacy. Its foundations will have been kicked away.