Essay on the House of Lords

The following is my own work, and no AI has been used in its making.

Extracted from a Word Document.

‘The House of Lords holds far too much power for an unelected body in a modern democracy. It should be fundamentally reformed.’

Introduction

A heavy assumption grounds itself within this statement; a ‘modern democracy’ exists as something irreconcilable with the House of Lords. This assumed view of a modern democratic government roots itself so far into the question that fundamental disagreement is almost guaranteed. It also serves as the preamble to the serious question of reform. On this front, this essay agrees – reform is necessary, but not within the context of a ‘modern democracy’, nor under the uncorroborated understanding that it holds too much power. This essay will explore the arguments used in favour of retention, as well as arguments in favour of reform and abolition of the House of Lords; it will neither agree with the proposition nor disagree wholly, and it will focus its attention on the fundamental arguments surrounding its democratic legitimacy, expertise, partisanship, scrutinising role, and degree of power.

Power

Before the particular roles of the House of Lords can be addressed, there exists a simple lack of power within it, due to statutory limitations imposed by the elected chamber, which informs its functions. The greatest of all such limitations came with the sister acts of the Parliament Act 1911 & 1949. The 1911 Act ensures that a bill continually pushed by the Commons can only be delayed by the Lords for two years, starting from its second reading in the Commons, and, for Money Bills, can only be delayed for up to a month.[1] This Act was further revised by the 1949 Act, which reduced the delaying power to one year.[2] These two Acts together shifted the British political landscape entirely, cementing that, although Parliament whole is sovereign, one chamber alone controls the Parliamentary agenda and drives government policy. The Lords, therefore, have been alienated from the apparatus and operation of government. The Commons can change the Lords at its will, an ability the Lords cannot be said to have. This fact is most evident through the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which is currently making its way through the parliamentary machine, soon to receive Royal Assent.[3] Such constraints undermine the proposition that its power is great enough to threaten the integrity of Britain’s democracy.

Democracy, Scrutiny, Expertise

On the second part of this question, there is the issue of how the Lords fit into a democratic society. The Lords today is open to criticism of legitimacy regarding mistrust of the system in which peers are chosen, including the privileged position of the Anglican Church in the form of the twenty-six Lords Spiritual; it can certainly be said that Britain sharing an unenviable position with Iran of being the only countries with clerics in the legislature is an embarrassment to a modern system of democratic and even meritocratic selection. It would, therefore, be a fair suggestion that the position of Lords Spiritual should either be dissolved or for it to expand its franchise to include the many other faiths that exist in Britain today.[4] However, at a House which hovers around eight-hundred members, twenty-six Lords Spirituals’ influence is unsubstantial and is more an argument of principle than practicality; this point is particularly emphasised when looking at the House of Lords Appointments Commission selection process today, which is transparent and involves shortlists and interviews, much more like the hiring for a job than the previously more honorific nature of Lords appointments.[5] The House holds – current or former – nineteen vice chancellors of universities or similar international positions, four presidents of the Supreme Court, and sixteen general secretaries of trade unions.[6] Evidently, there are a great number of expert members of a variety of fields in the Lords that may not otherwise exist in the Commons, which can serve to enhance our system of accountability through a more expert kind of scrutiny of the elected chamber; ergo, the Lords can serve to strengthen the rigour of our democratic process.

Analysis by Tom Caygill on post-legislative scrutiny has shown that the Lords Special Inquiry committees often spend more time labouring over pieces of passed legislation and their effects, and they are also filled with members of a generally higher level of expertise than their Commons select committee counterparts.[7] For example, on average, the Commons produce nineteen recommendations per report, and the Lords produce forty-one recommendations per report.[8] These Lords committees have around a year to report on the chosen issue and are usually focused on a single topic area, compared to the broader areas for the Commons departmental select committees. This allows for a more thorough report to the government, with the Lords committees issuing fewer research/review recommendations than the select committees of the Commons, which are seen as generally weaker recommendations, indicating greater time spent on the investigation of the pertinent facts of the issue by the committee itself.[9] What the Lords will lack in breadth – as it is not their role to shadow government departments like the Commons departmental select committees – they make up for in depth, greatly enhancing an otherwise potentially lacking post-legislative scrutiny in the Commons.[10]

 

Partisanship, Whips, Party Politics

Members of Commons select committees will usually take the opportunity to enhance their party political and public profile by grilling Cabinet members or private individuals relevant to the area of investigation and also to show the ‘folks back home’ that they are working hard to deliver.[11] The Lords, being a chamber that does not need to kowtow to voters, likes to stay away from those pieces of legislation that the Commons covers, which will often be issues or legislation in the public eye, leaving them playing to their strength: the more non-controversial legislation that serves to complement Commons scrutiny work and to broaden the legislation scrutinised.[12] Additionally, the whips, who are synonymous with party politics in the Commons, appear to have less power even within the parties, not to mention the sizeable number of crossbenchers. Meg Russell has noted that whips from all parties have said, relative to the Commons, how much more powerless they are to, for example, enforce a three-line whip (urgently needing members to vote) and how one individual who had been a whip in both chambers “characterized Lords whipping as needing to be ‘more persuasive’”.[13] The threat to withhold promotion – which whips have rather infamously used – is essentially powerless in the Lords, as Lords rarely aspire to be ministers, with many already having been ministers and just over a fifth of Lords having been MPs.[14]

The considerably less pronounced nature of partisanship serves to act as a cooling agent in the often tense political theatre of the Commons and to provide a thread of more long-term thinking and continuity in government, which is reflected in the previous section on scrutiny, where Caygill emphasised the academic opinion that the Lords is more concerned with strategic and lasting issues.[15]

Conclusion

As the Hereditary Peers Bill reaches its final stages through Parliament, it offers a good moment to evaluate the House of Lords today and its future reform. As demonstrated through academic analysis of the Lords, though many anachronisms remain, the House continues to move towards a chamber which can be said to hold a broader skill set than the Commons, with a calmer and more thoughtful culture of scrutiny, and with greater methods available in the pursuance of proper accountability of government. The statutes mentioned reject the idea that the Lords hold too much power, and the evidence provided within this essay suggests that, though unelected, the Lords function as a chamber that provides checks and balances in a far less partisan medium than the Commons – serving to enhance our democracy, not weaken it. Future reforms will likely see the House evolve much more in the spirit of a technocracy, of a broader expertise and of greater genuine participation in the law-making process, and this can be said to be no bad thing.

[1] Parliament Act 1911 ss 1 (1) and 2 (1)

[2] Parliament Act 1949 s 1

[3] House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) HC Bill 2024–26 [130]

[4] Liam Reynolds, 'An Analysis of the Democratised House of Lords: The Cost of Wisdom' (2016) 5 Manchester Rev L Crime & Ethics 10, 14–15

[5] M Russell, ‘A Brief Introduction to the Contemporary House of Lords’ in The Contemporary House of Lords: Westminster Bicameralism Revived (Oxford University Press 2013) 73–74

[6] Eve Collyer Merritt, 'Who is in the House of Lords? Members with backgrounds and professional experience in public life' (parliament.uk 2025) <https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/house-of-lords-backgrounds-in-public-life/> accessed 2nd November 2025

[7]Tom Caygill, ‘A Tale of Two Houses: Post-Legislative Scrutiny in the UK Parliament’ (2019) 21 European Journal of Law Reform 87, 90–91

[8] Caygill (n 7) 94–95

[9] ibid 95

[10] ibid 90

[11] Philip Norton, 'Post-legislative scrutiny in the UK Parliament: adding value' (2019) 25 JLS 340, 347–348

[12] Caygill (n 7) 94

[13] M Russell, ‘Political Actors in the Lords’ in The Contemporary House of Lords: Westminster Bicameralism Revived (Oxford University Press 2013) 112–113

[14] Eve Collyer Merritt, ‘Who is in the House of Lords? Members with backgrounds and professional experience in public life’ (UK Parliament 2025) <https://lordslibrary.parliament.uk/house-of-lords-backgrounds-in-public-life/> accessed 31 October 2025

[15] Caygill (n 7) 90–91