Lords a 'farcical free-for-all'

---

Lord Tyler urges the government to adopt the recommendations outlined in the Leader's Group on Working Practices of the House of Lords.

Unfortunately, I am one of only a minority in the House of Lords who recognise its fundamental failings. Its lack of democratic legitimacy undermines much of the good work it does, since ministers in successive governments can simply say: ‘you are not elected, the elected House (the Commons) must have its way'. All too often, this simply means the Executive gets its way.

Though many of my contemporaries in the Lords do not share this analysis, there is much broader agreement about how to make the House – with its present composition – work more effectively. This exercise should not be seen as an alternative to real reform, but an essential first step towards it. No doubt a more legitimate House would want to maintain many of the sensible, incremental reforms to our procedures which have been recommended by the Leader's Group on Working Practices.

As the House's membership has increased in recent months, Question Time has become an ever more farcical free-for-all. There are a large number of Members who wish to contribute at any one time. Newcomers are rightly mystified by the absurd way in which one has to jockey for the opportunity to speak. You have to pop up and start bellowing, ‘My Lords', in the hope that your bellow will be more thundersome than those of competing Members, or that some Lordly recognition of your particular position or seniority or expertise, or whatever, will persuade others to sit down and allow you to put your question.

We have regular shouts of "this side", as either Labour or the Conservatives argue over which benches should go next. Most extraordinarily of all, when these playground-like exchanges reach an impasse, a government minister is relied upon to stand up and say "I think we'll have Baroness So and So now, and then move on to Lord Such and Such". In effect, then, the Executive can choose whom it is questioned by and in what order.

Meanwhile, sitting with a comprehensive view of the whole chamber is a highly competent person – the Lord Speaker – who would be best placed to make the call as to who should speak next. Yet our antiquated rules mean she must be as silent as the Woolsack on which she sits.

It was her realisation that this anomaly – among others – was absurd that led Baroness Hayman to stimulate initial discussions on how our practices could be improved. The Leader's Group, which took up the cudgels after the election, has now built on that informal work and makes a number of sensible recommendations including:

- Keeping Question Time to questions, rather than allowing mini-speeches.

- Allowing the Lord Speaker to speak at Question Time, and to resolve any difficulty about who should go next.

- Giving the Lords the opportunity to question ministers on statements from the Commons, without having them repeated verbatim. Often such announcements have been widely trailed in the media beforehand, then read out in the Commons at length several hours before they get to the Lords.

- Examining the case for allowing Commons ministers in to answer questions in the Lords and vice versa (Why not?)

- Taking evidence on new legislation from outside experts, just as happens in the Commons.

You can read the full report here.

I will use my question in the Lords today (Tuesday) to urge the government – and the whole House – to introduce these reforms now, notwithstanding the longer-term arguments about composition. By doing so, we can confer a legacy of workable procedures on the reformed Lords, and add some welcome sanity to our own jobs in the meantime.

Lord Tyler is Liberal Democrat Constitutional Affairs Spokesperson in the House of Lords.