A British House Overflowing With Lords Draws Scorn
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Version 0 of 1. LONDON — Britain’s unelected and overcrowded House of Lords lost one of its members last month, when a newspaper exposé prompted the resignation of Lord Sewel of Gilcomstoun in Aberdeen, a former university lecturer who was accused of snorting cocaine with a prostitute and pictured wearing an orange bra. But after this brief downward blip, the second chamber of the British Parliament seems poised to resume the long expansion of its ranks. Prime Minister David Cameron is expected to nominate several dozen new members soon, continuing a tradition in which the party in power adds to its representation in the House of Lords, which, while limited in authority, can amend or delay legislation. Though adding new peers to the Lords is standard in British politics, there is growing disenchantment with political institutions across Europe. Support for mainstream parties is fragmenting, and populism is on the rise. The House of Lords is an easy target. Swollen numbers mean its ornate, gilded chamber is too small to seat all attendees on busy days, let alone the entire membership, while its age profile can make it look like a retirement home. With 781 members entitled to vote, the Lords enjoys the dubious title of the world’s largest legislative chamber outside China. “The House of Lords is growing out of control,” said Darren Hughes, deputy chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society, a group that promotes representative democracy. The society recently released a report that described the chamber as “a shockingly out of date and unrepresentative institution.” More than half of its members are 70 or older, and just two are younger than 39, according to the society. Of the 781 peers, 589 are men. Advancing years have not always brought wisdom, judging by the recent resignation of John Sewel, 69, who, as news reports gleefully recounted, was the chairman of a Lords committee responsible for upholding standards among members. That job ended when the tabloid The Sun on Sunday accused him of snorting cocaine off the breasts of a prostitute, and released a video that showed him consuming a white powder. These days, members are less likely to be scions of the landed aristocracy than politicians, advisers or party supporters, ennobled as a reward for loyal service or other (sometimes financial) contributions. Yet that has not prevented some peers from behaving as if they had strayed in from a distant country estate. Last year, they resisted a cost-cutting measure to share catering services with the House of Commons, because the quality of their champagne might suffer. More recently, The Daily Mail highlighted written complaints by unnamed lords and ladies about the food they were served, including one peer who moaned that a cheese crème brûlée consumed in February “wasn’t very cheesy,” and that a supreme of hake was “completely unadorned, with a hard crust on top.” Another member fumed that “cabbage, broccoli, sprouts and spinach have almost vanished completely in favor of root vegetables!” Despite such privations, a seat in the Lords remains prized. With it comes a title and the right to claim up to 300 pounds, or about $470, as a daily allowance for attending sessions (without having to give up any other job). Benefits include a desk in the historic Parliament buildings and access to facilities like a parking lot, restaurants and watering holes, including the wood-paneled Bishops’ Bar. For those who have spent their lives in politics, the House of Lords is also seductive because it gives them a public platform, and an opportunity to shape laws, without the inconvenience of standing for election. Mr. Cameron’s Conservative Party has the most members, 226, or 14 more than the opposition Labour Party. But with many peers not attached to a political party, that leaves the government vulnerable to defeats. The political lineup is noticeably out of kilter with the results of May’s general election. For example, the centrist Liberal Democrats, who won just eight seats in the House of Commons and 7.9 percent of the vote in May, have 101 seats in the upper chamber. Despite such anomalies, the assembly survives partly because it knows its place. As an unelected body, the Lords will ultimately yield on legislation if the elected House of Commons so demands. That avoids the type of gridlock sometimes seen in bicameral legislatures in other nations, including the United States. “One of its virtues is that it is different from the Commons,” said Elizabeth Gibson-Morgan, a constitutional expert who teaches both in France and at King’s College London. “Turning it into an elected house would turn it into a clone of the Commons.” But even before the latest scandal, there was growing opposition to enlarging the Lords, especially while Mr. Cameron has vowed to trim the House of Commons from 650 members to 600 to “cut the cost of politics.” Though much less expensive to the taxpayer per seat than the salaried legislators in the Commons, costs in the House of Lords are under scrutiny. According to the Electoral Reform Society report, in the 2010-2015 Parliament, peers who failed to vote even once in some years claimed a total of £360,000 in allowances, and the appointment of an additional 50 members would cost “at least £1.3 million per year.” Kirsty Blackman, a member of the Scottish National Party who was recently elected to the House of Commons, described the House of Lords as bloated, outdated, undemocratic and a “horrendous waste of money.” But Dr. Gibson-Morgan, who is married to the Labour peer and historian Lord Kenneth Morgan, highlighted the chamber’s expertise on constitutional and civil liberties issues. Possible improvements, she said, could include tougher vetting of potential members, and updated retirement rules. (Only since the beginning of the decade has it been possible for peers to retire, and retirement remains voluntary.) Dr. Gibson-Morgan said she also believed members could be nominated in a way that gave clearer representation to Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions, easing the strains within Britain highlighted by recent pressure for Scottish independence. But she contrasted the size of the House of Lords to that of France’s second chamber, the Senate, which, with 348 members, is less than half its size. |