The Century-long Conundrum: Reforming the House of Lords

 

Discussion about House of Lords reform is rather like Derrida’s analysis of the role of The Ghost in Hamlet. Derrida talks about The Ghost in Hamlet as beginning by coming back, it is returning from before the play, and keeps on re-appearing. Derrida’s writing is impossibly dense; and, quite frankly, unintelligible. However, I want to discuss House of Lords reform in reference to the idea that Lords reform is like a spectre haunting the British constitution. Whenever it appears on stage (i.e. as topic of discussion), it is always starting by coming back, by returning from some other time, a time from before we can even remember. Reform of The House of Lords is a spectre reminding us of something incomplete from our past, something unfinished, something unresolved, and something that seems destined to never be resolved.

 

Controversy about The Lords re-entered the stage, this week, due to the announcement that Boris Johnson is appointing new, additional peers, as part of his resignation honours list. Of course, part of the problem is who he is appointing; but really this is just scratching the surface of the problem. The real problem is the House of Lords; and so, we keep witnessing this spectre of Lords reform Re-enter Stage; Exit Stage; Re-enter Stage. 

 

Like The Ghost, the beginning of Lords reform happened entirely off-stage, in the sense that it began before even the oldest person in Britain was born. According to a quick Google search the oldest person currently living in Britain was born in August 1909. The events that kicked off the need for reform of The Lords began on 29 April 1909. 113 years on, and the conundrum that is Lords reform persists and haunts us today.

 

29 April 1909, Lloyd George presented the “People’s Budget”. Later that year, the hereditary House of Lords rejected the bill. This acted as a veto, since the two Houses had equal powers, and there was no mechanism to resolve disputes between the two. Thus, the hereditary Lords were able to block the elected Commons.

 

I can’t be bothered “doing” the story of how we got from the “People’s Budget” 113 years ago to today. That story would make Hamlet, Shakespeare’s longest play at 4 hours, look short. And, the detail and complexity of the story would make Derrida’s writing style seem simple and straightforward.

 

The Ghost has briefly re-entered the stage due to Boris’ resignation honours list. But, The Ghost is so exhausted that it hasn’t actually managed to re-ignite debate about Lords reform. In fact, it shuffles off the stage, exiting without even uttering a word or soliloquy this time. No one bothers to mention reform of The Lords; we are too tired for that – we have had that debate ad nauseam – all we can muster up is a spluttering about cronyism. Lords reform has become so intractable that even when it enters the stage, it does so silently in disguise, without actually whispering its name. Instead, someone else on stage is offered a chance to point a critical finger at House of Lords. But after the accusatory finger has pointed at the cronyism of The House of Lords, there is nothing more to say. The Ghost can exit the stage, and wait to re-enter. And the House of Lords carries on, a spectre of an incomplete act, a play waiting for an end.

 

All possible endings have been trialled. None have satisfied. So, we wait… and reform of The House of Lords keeps returning, whispering to us that, as it enters the stage, it is beginning only by coming back, again, and again.