Alexandra Kelso

Mind the Gap: Political Analysis, Public Expectations and the Parliamentary Decline Thesis

The parliamentary decline thesis formed the dominant theory and narrative of legislative behaviour and capacity during the 20th century. And yet in analytical terms the thesis provides a relatively blunt instrument for dissecting complex socio-political relationships. The bluntness of this tool has not been remedied by the lazy thinking and unconscious theorising that has too often dominated research in this field. The central argument of this article is that the dominant public, media and academic perception of an eviscerated and sidelined parliament provides a misleading caricature of a more complex institution. Moreover the constant promotion and reinforcement of this caricature by scholars arguably perpetuates and fuels public disengagement and disillusionment with politics.

The Public Good: Reforming Westminster after the Expenses Crisis

Duck houses, moats, garlic presses: last years expenses revelations rocked Westminster. But has the scandal led to lasting parliamentary reforms?Alexandra Kelso finds out. From duck moats to garlic presses and bell towers, last summers revelations lifted the lid on the exorbitant expenses culture at Westminster. Promised reforms have been slow but the scandal could turn out to be an important first step in finally making Parliament into a ‘good institution’, Alexandra Kelso reports.

The shifting landscape of prime ministerial accountability to parliament: an analysis of Liaison Committee scrutiny sessions

Prime ministerial power is always contingent, based on the utilisation of personal and institutional resources, subject to various formal and informal constraints. Parliament is both a political resource to be utilised, but also a veto-player. In the absence of formal mechanisms setting out the requirements for the UK prime ministerial accountability to parliament, a fluid and essentially personalised relationship has developed. Regular prime ministerial appearances before the House of Commons Liaison Committee, begun in 2002, have added to parliament’s scrutiny toolkit. This article considers the accountability of the prime minister to parliament by analysing the emergence and development of the Liaison Committee evidence sessions, and draws on interviews with participants and examination of the session transcripts, in order to assess the value of this scrutiny mechanism within the broader framework of prime ministerial-legislative relations.

The Contemporary House of Lords: Westminster Bicameralism Revived

cross-party discussions and involvement from outside states: the Republic of Ireland and the United States. I approached this work as a sceptic about referendums. Although I retain many of my doubts, Qvortrup has shown that, depending on the context, they can operate as beneficial decision-making devices. Given that referendums have become a firm part of constitutional practice in the UK, and more are likely to follow in the future – for instance, over EU membership – the analytical tools he offers are valuable and could, if applied in practice, help achieve more satisfactory plebiscitary experiences.

Labour Learns the Complexities of Lords Reform: The 1949 Parliament Act

When Labour won the 1945 general election, the party still had no agreed policy on House of Lords reform. The short-lived minority Labour governments of 1924 and 1929–31 had understandably paid little attention to reform of the Second Chamber, not least because of their political weakness, and in the case of the latter Labour administration, the severity of the economic crisis which confronted it. In these contexts, reform of the House of Lords was simply not a priority.

Conclusion: A Constant Constitutional Conundrum

The story of House of Lords reform over the last 100 years or so has been characterised both by remarkable institutional change as well as by frequently stalled political processes. A few snapshots of the House of Lords at the beginning and end of our story reveal the extent of change which has taken place. The Second Chamber began the twentieth century as a hereditary body; by its end, it was a predominantly appointed one. At the start of the twentieth century, peers were, because of their aristocratic nature, very much a mixed bag when it came to capabilities, knowledge, and experience; by the close of the century, the Lords contained world-class experts from business, education, medicine, science, etc, and also served as a final professional outpost for those from government, politics, and the civil service, all of whom could bring their collective knowledge and judgement to bear on any number of issues before parliament at any given time. The House of Lords began the twentieth century with the power to veto any government’s legislation and budget; it ended the century with its veto over ordinary legislation confined to a one-year delay and its ability to block financial bills removed entirely, so that its legislative capacity focused mostly on non-binding amendments. At the start of the twentieth century, the Second Chamber operated according to a relatively simple set of procedural guidelines and rules; by the century’s close, it had instituted far more rigorous scrutiny procedures and also developed significant specialisation through the development of a highly respected select committee system, both of which had greatly enhanced its ability to apply expert insights to much of its parliamentary work.

Firing the First Shots: The 1911 Parliament Act and Inter-War Initiatives

The period from 1906 to 1911 has been described as ‘the most traumatic period in the history of the House of Lords’ (Longford, 1988: 136), for it was during this period that increasing conflict between the House of Commons and the Second Chamber culminated in the 1911 Parliament Act to curb the latter’s power, with further reform pledged to follow imminently. A number of developments during the first decade of the twentieth century served to focus critical attention on the House of Lords, even though reform of the Second Chamber did not actually feature in the main political parties’ manifestos for the 1906 election, which was won by the Liberal Party. This proved to be an increasingly radical government which subsequently sought to enact a number of significant social and tax reforms that alarmed many Conservatives, the latter’s growing anxieties being compounded by the formation, also in 1906, of the Labour Party, which saw 53 MPs elected in that year’s election. Furthermore, the 1906 election returned 83 Irish Nationalist MPs, committed to Home Rule, which the Liberals broadly supported, but which the Conservatives bitterly opposed. With the House of Commons thus dominated by Liberals, Labour, and the Irish Nationalists, and the Liberal government pursuing various measures which many Conservatives viewed as ‘socialist’ in character or effect, the Conservative-dominated House of Lords increasingly seemed to adopt the mantle of last-ditch defender of the British Constitution, thereby bringing it into repeated conflict with the elected Lower House and the government therein.

Crossman can’t Convince his Colleagues: The 1969 Parliament (No. 2) Bill

The Labour Party had given little further thought to the issue of House of Lords reform during the 1950s, partly because of general satisfaction among its MPs that the 1949 Parliament Act had halved the Second Chamber’s power of delay. The party still abhorred the hereditary component in the House of Lords, especially as the vast majority of these were Conservatives, but having reduced the Second Chamber’s veto power, many Labour MPs seemed content to leave matters as they were, although the threat of further reform — or even abolition — could always be wielded if a future Labour government encountered serious obstruction from the House of Lords.

Out with the Hereditary Peers — or most of them: The 1999 House of Lords Act and Beyond

Having been chastened by its traumatic experience in attempting to reform the House of Lords during 1968–9, the Labour Party was understandably cautious about returning to the issue so soon afterwards. The Conservatives were returned to office in 1970 led by Edward Heath, and the troubling economic and political climate of the 1970s meant that there was little appetite among either main party for pursuing a new initiative for reforming the Second Chamber. It was understandably a non-issue as far as the Conservatives anyway, for the existing composition of the House of Lords suited them very well, while the Labour Party, when it was returned to office in the February and October 1974 general elections, offered no new pledges concerning Lords reform. Indeed, as it was a minority government for most of the 1974–9 period, the last thing Labour wanted was further evidence of its weakness by launching into another House of Lords reform suicide mission.

A Right of Renunciation: The 1963 Peerage Act

As we noted in the previous chapter, the ministerial discussions over the Life Peerages Bill had heard some senior Conservatives recommend that the legislation should also enable hereditary peers to renounce their titles, primarily to enable them to seek election to the House of Commons instead, or in the case of an MP who inherited a title, to remain as an MP. The cabinet, though, had not been willing to extend the Bill’s provisions beyond the creation of Life Peers, and as such, while an MP could henceforth be awarded a peerage and entitled to sit in the House of Lords for the remainder of their days, a hereditary peer still could not renounce their peerage in order to sit in the House of Commons as an MP. Until the early 1960s, this had not normally proved problematic, for the simple reason that it was extremely rare for a hereditary peer to want to renounce their title in order to sit in the House of Commons. This may have owed much to the fact that, as we also noted in the previous chapter, the overwhelming majority of ‘active’ hereditary peers were Conservatives, whose social backgrounds and political outlook imbued with them a strong sense of shared identity and belonging in the House of Lords. Indeed, some of them probably viewed it in terms of a rather exclusive and convivial gentlemen’s club. Moreover, as Conservatives were, by definition, concerned to maintain the status quo as far as was practicably possible, the House of Lords afforded ample opportunity — the 1949 Parliament Act notwithstanding — to seek to amend or ameliorate some of the more radical measures emanating from the House of Commons, and in so doing, contribute to the maintenance of the existing socio-economic order in Britain. In this respect, Conservative hereditary peers could feel satisfied that they were still playing a valuable role in defending the overall status quo.