Lords reform is doomed without democracy

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Reform is easy, but good reform can be damnably hard; and good constitutional reform presents the toughest challenge of all. To succeed, it must pass three tests. Is it rooted in clear democratic principles? Will it work? Will it last? The answers prompted by yesterday's White Paper on the House of Lords are: no, no and no.

The absence of democratic principle is plain. All kinds of ideas have been put forward for introducing real democracy to the upper house. There could be separate, direct elections - as for the United States Senate. Or there could be indirect elections, with the upper house comprising politicians who already sit in regional assemblies. This is the German system. Or parties could nominate members in proportion to their vote at each general election. This ingenious idea has been floated by the politicallyattuned pop musician, Billy Bragg.

To be fair, the Government makes no claims in the White Paper to be driven by democratic passion. Its sole reason for proposing 120 elected members rather than any other number is to ensure parity with the number of non-party members to be appointed by the independent Appointments Commission. Why the two numbers should be the same, or why the two together should be outnumbered by Lords appointed by Prime Ministerial patronage, is nowhere explained.

Any assessment of whether the proposed system will work is bound to be subjective. But we are not wholly without evidence to draw on. After all, most countries have twochamber parliaments. One common theme is that successful upper houses are invariably smaller, and usually much smaller, than lower houses. Germany's Bundesrat has just 69 members; the US Senate 100. Italy (326) and France (321) are at the top end.

The White Paper proposes an eventual House of Lords of 600 members, but during the next 10 years the number could climb as high as 750. This would make the United Kingdom one of only three countries whose upper house is larger than the lower house. The other two are Kazakhstan and Burkina Faso. They are not normally advertised as models of parliamentary perfection. Nor, for that matter, are France or Italy. It does seem that, with upper chambers the world over, small really is beautiful.

There are two reasons for this. First, upper houses have more limited powers, so do not need to be too big. Second, according to Reforming the Lords: Lessons from Overseas, by Meg Russell (published by OUP), small upper houses allow their members to get to know each other better, and to act in a more collegiate, less adversarial spirit. This encourages a different tone to debate, and a more effective ability to monitor the lower house.

So why has the Government opted for such a large new House of Lords? It does not say - but, of course, the answer is not hard to seek. There are currently 587 life peers. In order to shrink the Lords to a sensible size - say, 100 to 200 - most life peers would have to be expelled. The Government's refusal to grasp this nettle is the main reason why its White Paper is so flawed.

This leads to a wider point. Serious reform would start with an examination of Parliament as a whole, proceed to a discussion of the powers that should be wielded by both chambers (instead of looking at only one), and end up with a coherent pair of decisions about how the members of both should be chosen. By excluding the role of the Commons from its remit, and by concentrating on form before function, the Government has done things in precisely the wrong order.

That is not all. Some important second-order decisions have not been taken at all. Should a reformed upper house recruit fulltime members who are paid a proper salary, or should it continue to be populated by part-time members paid only an attendance allowance?

To attract younger, talented men and women without a private income (or a well-paid partner) from Wales, Scotland, Ulster and the north of England, a salary will be essential. But that would change the character of the Lords as fundamentally as any proposal about direct elections. But the Government says merely that it is "open to views" on the subject. Thus it leaves another nettle ungrasped.

Overall, then, we have a halfcooked mess; which is why the White Paper also fails the final test. Its reforms, even if they are implemented as the Government wishes, will not last. Robert Hazell, head of the Constitution Unit at University College, London, is surely right when he says: "The Government wants this to be the second and final stage of House of Lords reform. It won't be.

"Too many people in all parties oppose the entrenchment of Prime Ministerial patronage. What is more, the arrival of professional, elected members will change the culture in a way that will cause real problems for part-time life peers. Even if these proposals pass into law, demands are bound to grow for a further, more radical, reform within the next few years."