Labour’s dilemma and opportunity

This week, the Labour Party announced it was rowing back on two key policies.

The first of these is the £28bn green investment pledge - which they justified on the basis that the nation can’t afford it at this time.

That’s not for us to comment on, what we want to talk about is the second policy Labour has seemingly dropped - House of Lords Reform.

Here’s what Labour’s National Policy Platform agreed by Labour Party Conference in October said about Lords Reform -

Labour is committed to abolishing the House of Lords. In its place, we will establish a second chamber that is smaller, offers the taxpayer better value for money, and is reflective of the regions and nations with elected representatives rather than political appointees.

This is a change that is long overdue and has widespread public support. Polling carried out by YouGov for Unlock Democracy found that 62% would support an elected or part elected second chamber to replace the House of Lords. Only 13% want to keep the status quo.

Yet multiple recent reports and briefings suggest that Labour is heading towards maintaining the status quo, with only minimal changes to the Lords.

Reports suggest that the main change Labour will deliver is around hereditary peers, who astonishingly still get to vote on our laws in the 21st Century. It’s 25 years since the last major reform of the House of Lords which removed voting rights from most hereditary peers.

The compromise Tony Blair made at the time to get that through was that 92 hereditary peers would remain and by-elections would be held to replace peers if they resigned or passed away - keeping the number at 92.

In 2007, the Labour Government put forward a white paper which included a proposal to end those by-elections and therefore remove hereditary peers by attrition.

House of Lords reform then lost momentum as cross party discussions were suggested and plans for a further white paper failed to materialise.

It’s this 17-year-old proposal that Labour seems to be reviving now. Hereditary peers to disappear via retirement or death over the coming decades.

Maybe hereditary peers will no longer be voting on our laws by 2050 then!

This is about as unambitious as reform can get.

We think Labour should think again about this.

It’s in the early years of new governments that most significant constitutional changes happen.

Just look at New Labour’s record in its first term delivering devolution to Scotland and Wales, removing most of the hereditary peers from the Lords, the Freedom of Information Act and the Human Rights Act and some voting reform for Mayoral elections.

In the Coalition Government from 2010-15, we saw the Fixed Term Parliament Act, the Recall of MPs Act and failed attempts to reform the Lords and the voting system.

These are rarely reforms that governments get to in second terms - if indeed they even win a second term!

It is widely accepted that one of the reasons that the 1997 Labour Government focused on political reform so much was because of the financial restrictions it had placed on itself. Constitutional reforms are actually pretty cheap to deliver and the changes they deliver are usually long-lasting and highly consequential for the country.

If Labour wins, it’s likely that they will be under even tougher financial restrictions than they were in 1997 - they know this and that’s why they’ve backed away from the £28bn green investment policy.

So why not take an opportunity that only comes around once every 15 or 20 years to make real changes to how politics works in this country.

Because people have never wanted change more than they do right now. In the YouGov/Unlock Democracy poll from September, more than 7 in 10 people thought the political system was failing. Nearly 9 in 10 said reform was needed and nearly all (8 out 9) of those people thought the reforms needed to be more than minor.

They aren’t going to be satisfied with the gradual reduction of voting hereditary peers over the next 30 or so years!

Furthermore, 68% of those questioned in our survey thought that reforms to our political system should take place in the next five years. These should be first term issues for the next Government.

Labour has a dilemma if they win - money is going to be tight. They are going to need to point to real achievements if they are serious about winning a second term. What is that going to be?

Why not reform a failing political system that has left people feeling so let down and ignored?

Don’t just stop at devolution and cleaning up politics. Implement the Lords reform agreed by the Labour Conference just a few months ago. Go even further - Labour’s own research and polling shows that Proportional Representation for Westminster elections is the reform that would make the biggest difference to politics in the UK.

Deliver it - give the UK’s creaking democracy the shot in the arm it needs.

This would be popular and inexpensive, and could leave a legacy to match that of Blair's constitutional reforms.

What an opportunity! We hope they will take it if they win.