A House of Experts

Fresh thinking on how to reform the House of Lords

As a long-time supporter of the idea of citizen’s assemblies, I have felt conflicted by the current argument about the future of the House of Lords.  While the present structure of the Lords is clearly untenable, we must be wary of replacing it with something that might turn out not a whole lot better.  For a continuous second chamber, I suggest we need to think from scratch what would be the best option rather than trying to squeeze an existing concept into the same hole.

The organisation Assemble want a House of the People (presumably an anti-political entity).  Others have suggested an elected house based on a form of proportional representation, or a house representing the regions in some form, or a random body of people like a jury.  My concern would be how much are they bringing to the table? It’s all very well to say that ‘politics is broken’, but where does that leave you?  If we want a complementary House of Ex-Lords, surely it should bring in those unrepresented by the Commons?  I don’t mean the underprivileged, who need better representation, which can only come from a better working democracy rather than a replacement body.  My view is that we need greater expertise.

MPs have to learn about a lot of things on the job. The fact that so few of them have experienced work in “normal” jobs before parliament only makes the situation worse. Also, of course, government and opposition parties will adopt stances based on political criteria rather than objectivity or close study of the issues.  So, to have a body of people on hand who know stuff could only be beneficial.  It would also obviate the activities of lobbyists, as they could be scrutinised at source.

So the House of Experts I would envisage would be something like up to 500 people who are specialists in their fields.  They would serve for, say, 6 months (on sabbatical?) and being replaced by persons with similar qualifications, to cover those areas where legislation is problematic (probably all of them!).  It would mean that, instead of the current situation where politicians declare their aims of fixing a problem in five years, say, the detail and difficulties and realistic solutions would be in the open debating chamber rather than muttered by people who lack the resource to influence what happens.  

Since the chosen members would not be parti pris, debate would be a more constructive, Habermasian procedure than the antagonistic Commons (to be fair, the current Lords and proposed citizen’s assemblies also aim to do that).  Selection procedures would be up for debate: one possibility would be choosing by geography (different areas might have different approaches to issues).  It would also be useful to have overlapping knowledge areas debating in the same place (e.g. climate change and farming).

An obvious question that arises concerns the authority such a chamber may have. Is it purely advisory, or can it legislate, in which case by what right?  My feeling is that it should be essentially advisory, but that the Commons would have to have very good reasons for going against the advice of the Experts.  I would not expect the new House to be able to initiate legislation.

So where does that leave our cherished citizen’s assemblies?  In a better place, because I believe they are more suitable for specific (and maybe local) issues than as a national body (think of a CA deciding foreign policy).  It was originally felt that their value lay in resolving political impasses, and I would expect there to be a future in that line of business.  This would also, of course, do away with the problem of maintaining such bodies, as they would be entirely ad hoc.  Even better, it would stop complaints that we are trying to take over from the politicians!

Andrew Hemming