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Tony Blair won’t welcome the parallel but the Lords are arguably as much a test of Labour

Tony Blair won’t welcome the parallel, but the Lords are arguably as much a test of Labour as Hilary Clinton’s health reforms were a test of the US president.. Last month, the same American court that first sentenced Nicholas Ingram to death turned down a “genetic appeal” aimed at saving the life of the murderer Stephen Mobley. Mobley, 25 and with a long and violent criminal record, had admitted shooting a pizza store manager in the back of the head during a failed robbery four years ago. What he will say is that Labour may act in the first two years, and he makes a firm commitment to remove the hereditary principle within the life of the first Parliament.Howells and Straw no doubt agree with Graham Allen when he says: “One sizeable advantage of tackling the second chamber is that it will be highly symbolic of Labour’s democratic intent to complete a job which has eluded the series of Labour Governments since the 1920s.”All three will also recognise the threat left unspoken – the contrary symbolic message if Labour again fails to reform the Lords after committing itself so far already. Whatever results, it seems certain to be a considerable retreat from the 1993 conference, which backed election of the House of Lords on a regional basis and by proportional representation – and the leadership will have to work as hard as they did with Clause IV to explain the retreat to the troops.Howells is aware of the enormous commitment Labour has already made for its first 100 days in office, and Lords’ reform will certainly not be among them.

A policy will then go to the shadow cabinet, and eventually to party conference (but almost certainly not this year’s). According to Howells this will happen before the summer recess. There may be other papers, expressing minority dissenting views, if the apparent consensus among the six peers dissolves when it comes to the detail.After the Commission has opined, the formal steps at least will be laid out. The group will meet again soon.Eventually the discussion will lead to a paper, written by Straw and Howells, going to the party’s policy forum, its Commission on Democracy, a group of MPs and party apparatchiks.

There was consensus on ends – abolish the hereditary principle, retain the expertise, but the discussion did not get much beyond that. Convention in the Lords has it that any bill which corresponds exactly to a manifesto pledge should not be opposed. That makes it more than just academic whether Labour forms a detailed policy soon.Only in the past few weeks has the party machinery which turns ideas into policies started grinding into life. Howells and Straw recently held a meeting of a working group on Lords reform, comprising six interested Labour life peers, including at least one former minister. If you stop them attending, she has to withdraw her writ.For that reason, if for no other, Labour may well find itself allowing hereditary peers to turn up but not vote in the knowledge that their successors will not receive a royal summons.The same official’s opinion is also that a firm manifesto commitment by Labour is essential to stop the Lords opposing and obstructing the process. We’d get into a mire of constitutional reform.”Howells believes the deliberations of the party between now and the election will find a way to preserve the virtues of the existing system while abolishing the hereditary element.There are further difficulties probably not even envisaged yet by Labour, never mind solved, and even superficially esoteric points could act as a rallying call for opponents, and delay legislation for months.For example, according to one senior Palace of Westminster official, if you stop hereditary peers attending as well as voting, it would be a major embarrassment to the Queen, because when she made them peers she formally issued the writ summoning them to “treat and give counsel”. There must be some method of making [the Lords] reflect the political balance.” One thing ruled out is Lord Lester’s constitutional shopping-list “I’m opposed to constitutional reform all in one bill.

Their tenure would have to be for life, and we would have to make them attend somehow.”One possibility is a committee to nominate peers, something like a joint standing committee of both houses. “If you wish to continue to get business through Parliament it will mean creating new ones. Part of this would be done by turning hereditary peers into life peers. But if you take away the rights of hereditary peers, he acknowledges, you would be still be left with a built-in political imbalance among the life peers, of whom an estimated 34 per cent are Conservatives and only 23 per cent Labour.”We would still probably need new peers,” Howells says. So far his analysis of reform contains as many questions as answers; on the detail, when asked about his plans, he seems to be still only thinking aloud.The only definite commitment so far is to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers. This sense of pragmatism is reflected in the choice of Kim Howells as the new Labour spokesman on the constitution, not because he has a deep knowledge or interest in it, but because he too is a pragmatist, and because, on Lords’ reform at least, “there is no difference between me and Jack.”Howells acknowledges the virtues of the present Lords: its broad expertise, the awesome ability of some members in select committees and the fact that its written reports are more erudite than those of Commons committees.

No serious figure in the existing Labour establishment expects this view to prevail. Lord McIntosh, deputy leader of the Labour Party in the Lords, still holds it, but acknowledges that he has lost the argument inside the new Labour Party and is keeping his head down.Faced with such a spread of views, and a wide measure of indifference, Labour’s policy on Lords reform will not emerge routinely, or by consensus: the decisions will rest with Tony Blair and with Jack Straw, the Home Affairs spokesman, a radical opponent of the hereditary principle, but a pragmatist who knows Labour must balance legislation on such abstract matters as constitutional reform with action on issues like health and education which are matters of more immediate public concern. They would like the Lords simply to be abolished, arguing that the Commons could take on its role, by consulting more effectively on legislation, and treating the committee stage of legislation as a forum for debate rather than a sparring match. “The creation of a Scottish Parliament and regional assemblies and executives would profoundly alter the composition and functions of the Westminster Parliament and would influence the way in which the House of Lords was reformed.”These ultra-democrats represent one end of the spread of Labour opinion on Lords’ reform. Significantly, Allen is no longer party spokesman on the subject.