The Docility of Dukes
By IAN GILMOUR UOR nearly a hundred years people have been r trying to reform the House of Lords. The latest proposal is that it should be displaced by the Privy Council (The Privy Council as a Second Chamber, by A. Wedgwood Benn, MP, Fabian Tract, ls. 6d.). Under this scheme the second Chamber would have practically no powers, but it would be useful for discussion purposes, it would tidy up legislation, and `good Labour people' would be prepared to serve in it. The hereditary element, which is the basis of the present second Chamber, would be totally eliminated.
The proposal is not therefore likely to gain the favour of Lord Salisbury, who considers the hereditary principle to be of great value and wishes to retain it in one form or another. In 1955 he stated that it was `the hereditary peers . . . who give the House that special quality . . . which is, I believe, its chief merit.' The chief merit was its 'independent character.' This House . . he continued, 'in the sense that it is independent- minded, stands, I believe, alone among all the second Chambers of the world wherever they may be.' By independence I take Lord Salisbury to mean independence of the Government or the electorate or of special interests, and I imagine that he was talking principally of the overwhelm- ing majority of the House who are either Con- servatives (55.2 per cent.) or non-party (32.5).
As independence seems to be considered the great virtue of the hereditary chamber, it may be of interest to sec how independent the House of Lords really is, and whether our hereditary legislators are more independent than their first creation colleagues. This can be done by looking at the Lords debates on Commercial Television, Capital Punishment and Suez. These debates drew a bigger attendance than usual, and the matters debated were of considerable interest. They were not questions of party doctrine or programme and they thus provided an excellent opportunity for peers to exhibit that independence of mind which has earned them the admiration of Lord Salisbury. Since in none of them was the Govern- ment in serious danger of defeat absence was more likely to mean support or indifference than opposition. There are no first creation Dukes or Marquesses existing, so the performances of these two top orders give a good indication of the im- portance of the hereditary principle to the independence of the Lords.
On Commercial Television one Duke (Wel- lington) and no Marquesses, and on hanging one Duke (Devonshire) and one Marquess (Lothian) voted against the Government. On neither of the Suez debates did a single Duke or Marquess oppose the Government. It may be that this docility of our Dukes and Marquesses is con- fined to politics; in other directions they seem enterprising enough, e.g., the Duke of Argyll with his sock advertising and the Duke of Bedford with his nudists. But Lord Salisbury was presum- ably speaking of politics not commerce. And politically their rate of nonconformity is about 2 per cent.
Looking at the Lords as a whole it is true that over CTV there was more Conservative oppo- sition to the Government in the Lords than in the Commons, though in view of the wide insti- tutional opposition to CTV of the Free Churches, much of the Church of England and, as Lord Hailsham put it, 'the Vice-Chancellors of all the Universities and the whole educational system,' it is surprising that there was not a great deal more.
On Capital Punishment there were fewer Con- servative or non-party abolitionists (excluding the Bishops and the Judges) in the Lords than there were Tory abolitionists in the Commons, although the latter were subjected to considerable pressure by the Whips and often by outraged constituents.
On the first Suez debate one Conservative voted against the Government. As this was before any Conservative had publicly voiced opposition to the Government in the Commons, this was certainly one up to the Lords, even though it may be due to the fact that before the vote on the same night in the Commons wavering Tories were led to believe that our troops were at that moment landing in Egypt. By the second debate there were two Tories prepared to vote against the Government. One or two more Tories and non-party peers such as Lords Tedder and Brand made highly critical speeches but they did not press their opposition to a vote. Conservative opposition to the Government was less strong in the Lords than in the Commons. Such party loyalty may be admirable; it is not independence.
Though the Lords may in theory be more independent than the Commons, they are in fact rather less so. And if Lord Salisbury is right in saying that the House of Lords is the most independent-minded second Chamber in the world, independence is evidently not a charac- teristic of second Chambers. It certainly would not be a characteristic of Mr. Benn's Privy Council.
Mr. Benn is convinced of the need for a second Chamber because he does not think the Com- mons alone could 'cope with the work now done by the Lords.' A Labour .Government,' he goes on, 'needs a second Chamber more than does a Conservative Government'; and Mr. Morrison has said that the Labour Government could not have carried through its legislation programme if the Lords had not been there to clean up its Bills and make them presentable. The House of Lords which used to be Mr. Balfour's poodle became Lord Attlee's charwoman.
Mr. Benn's Privy Council proposal would prevent the shipwreck of promising politicians which the present system often brings about, but so would a measure which enabled those succeed- ing to a peerage to renounce their seats if they so wished, and which permitted life peerages.
The problem of the second Chamber seems to me to be more one of power than of membership. If the power of the Lords were abolished, then no one could reasonably object to backwoodsmen turning up to vote whenever they felt the urge. Moreover, if the Government did not have to secure a majority for its Bills in the Upper House, discussion, would be on a much higher level than it is now. It might even be independent.
The abolition of the Lords' political power would be a great blessing to Ministers in the Lords. At present they are sometimes placed in an embarrassing position. For instance, Lord Salisbury recommended CTV on the grounds that the young were in favour of, it, and the old against it. On Capital Punishment, since it was the young who were against it and the old for it, this was an argument that could not be employed. .Instead Lord Salisbury used a constitutional ar- gument—the function of the Lords was when possible to 'give a breathing space to enable public opinion to crystallise on issues on which they had not been consulted and on which their views were not known.' Naturally over CTV when the conditions were precisely the same except that the Government was on the other side this function was forgotten. In a reformed House of Lords such casuistry would be less necessary.
The task of tidying up legislation could best be fulfilled by a Lords Committee. Peers ap- pointed to this Committee would have the same security of tenure as the judges. Only peers Who were Committee members would be paid. The amendments to Commons legislation, which this Committee proposed, would not be discussed by the Lords as a whole and the Committee would have no power to insist upon their being adopted if the Commons refused to accept them.
The Lords would continue to discharge their ceremonial duties like the Beefeaters. As Joe Chamberlain put it: 'I am rather thankful than otherwise to gentlemen who will take the trouble to wear robes and coronets and who will keep up a certain state of splendour which is very pleasant to look upon. They are ancient monu- ments and I should be sorry to deface them. But then, gentlemen, I don't believe that we can build upon these interesting ruins the foundation of our Government.'
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