'The House of Lords should be abolished. The UK only needs one chamber of parliament' Discuss

Despite the strong argument for abolishing the House of Lords, there are many important factors supporting a contrasting conclusion. Namely, that the dissolution of the House of Lords would disrupt the system of ‘checks and balances’, the House of Lords is the only house that carries out expert, effective and necessary scrutiny of legislation and that the chamber is necessary to protect the constitutional rights and human rights of UK citizens. The House of Lords plays an important role in the separation of powers model. The second house ensures that the executive and legislative powers do not become too combined and consolidated in one place. A more socialist argument would be that in a true democracy power should be checked by the masses; however in reality this would not be entirely possible without constant and unrealistic intervention from the electorate. A consolidation of power in the Commons could in effect lead to a set-term dictatorship of the elected house. Without the House of Lords, the Commons and in particular the Prime Minister would hold vast and unchecked legislative and executive power, a position that our system of governance has sought to move away from.

The scrutiny and revision of bills is one of the House of Lords’ foremost roles. By the nature of its composition the House is able to expertly analyse and propose revisions for bills. This is a very important role: ‘The scale of this work (the examination and revision of government legislation) was evident in the long 1999-2000 session, when the Lords made 4,619 amendments to government bills brought up from the Commons.’ The large numbers of amendments made by the house show the effectiveness of the use of legislative powers. The House of Commons has neither the time, nor the specialist skills, necessary to carry out such in depth and specific scrutiny of legislation that is made possible by the pooling of expertise in the House of Lords select committees. The contrasting argument is that the conservative nature of the House of Lords makes it more of an obstruction to legislation passed by the House of Commons. However, the legislative power of the Lords is restricted, both externally an internally. The main statutory restrictions are set out in the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. These state that the House of Lords may only delay a ‘money bill’ for one month, the House can only delay a ‘public bill’ (other than a money bill or a bill proposing to extend the maximum duration of parliament beyond 5 years) for more than a year and may only send the bill back to the Commons once before the Commons may enact the bill without the consent of the Lords amongst other relatively stringent restrictions. Further to this the constitutional convention set forth by Lord Salisbury serves as the main internal restraint: ‘In addition the Upper House has generally adopted such self-denying ordinances, such as the ‘Salisbury Doctrine’, which in effect accept its subordination to the House of Commons.’ This doctrine provides that in effect the House of Lords will not veto any legislation proposed by the party in power in their election manifesto. The House of Lords carries out its legislative role very effectively and is indeed the only house in a position to do so. Its obstructive powers are carefully restricted by a number of different sources. Given these facts, the importance of scrutinising and amending legislation serves as a strong argument in opposition to the abolition of the House of Lords.

The UK’s constitution is ‘indeterminate, indistinct and unentrenched’. As a result it is more difficult to define what constitutes an un-constitutional act or a breach of a citizen’s constitutional rights. The duty of upholding the UK constitution and protecting Human Rights falls largely on the shoulders of the House of Lords, in particular the constitution committee and the joint committee on Human Rights. This is the chamber that is more committed and more qualified to fulfil such a role: ‘The culture in the House of Lords, with its large cross-bench component and the more independent stance that non-elected members can take up, is less politically partisan and tends to favour constitutionalism and limited government.’ Without the Upper House there is a risk that the UK constitution may be unwittingly or knowingly flouted by the House of Commons. Oliver makes a good point regarding the less partisan nature of the Lords. This allows the House to concern itself more precisely on constitutional and human rights rather than with the interests of a particular political party. The committed protection of the aforementioned rights is a further counter-argument to the proposal of abolishing the House of Lords.  

Doubts may be raised concerning the democratic legitimacy of the House of Lords; however it performs crucial roles that would not be carried out as effectively in a unicameral parliament. Public opinion would suggest that reform of the Lords is necessary, which may be so, but the fact that to some extent it is the nature of the composition of the House that allows it to perform its roles efficiently should not be ignored. Whilst an acceptable recipe for the reformation of the House of Lords continues to prove illusive, this should not lead to consideration of the abolition of the Upper House.

List of Sources

1. Turpin & Tomkins, British Government and the Constitution (2007)
2. Gavin Phillipson, "The greatest quango of them all", "a rival Chamber" or "a hybrid nonsense"? Solving the second chamber paradox
3. The power commission into electoral politics
4. D. Oliver, Constitutional scrutiny of executive bills (2004)
5. Barry K. Winetrobe, Research paper 98/103, Lords reform: The legislative role of the House of Lords (1998)

Feedback on essay (from tutor): Be precise with footnotes and references: Include author, title and page number.

Structure and content: Include a proper introduction – an introduction that engages with the question. My essay did not engage with the question directly enough, there were three similar questions – should have mentioned essay title. Give some direction of where the essay is going. Of course address the question in the conclusion again and engage with the arguments developed throughout the essay.

It is important to describe the issues, however you will not get a lot of marks for this. Analysis is where the marks are. Critical analysis. Normative and prescriptive.