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Two Conservative figures have admitted that their Government tried to push through multiple pieces of legislation that were in a “crappy” and “ridiculous” state – in the expectation that the unelected House of Lords would fix them through amendments.
At a Westminster event on House of Lords reform, hosted by the liberal conservative think tank Bright Blue, two Conservative politicians praised the work of the Lords in fixing legislation their own Government had proposed in the last Parliament.
Conservative peer Lord (Shaun) Bailey, who is also an elected London Assembly member, was in the audience and raised objections to making the House of Lords an elected chamber, partly due to their role in tidying up Rishi Sunak’s controversial legislation to deport unsuccessful asylum seekers to Rwanda..
After reeling out several arguments against Lords reform, he said: “All of those issues I think need answering before we then get rid of [the Lords], because I’m sure that we need a chamber to balance the Commons.
“I’ll give it to you like this: Rwanda. The Rwanda legislation… I voted for it, and I was always going to vote for it. But it was ridiculous, the state it arrived in the Lords. Ironically, Labour peers made it better. They held that idea down, and thrashed it around.
“And I remember being more happy voting for it after Labour colleagues had beaten it up a bit, than when it first arrived. And if we lose that, we give the executive unchecked power.”
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However, if he was referring to this April’s Safety of Rwanda (Asylum and Immigration) Act, the Lords were unable to make substantive changes to it – because they kept being overridden by the Conservative majority in the Commons.
According to the Institute for Government: “Although the House of Lords held out for several rounds of ping-pong, in the end the only concessions were an amendment requiring the Secretary of State to produce an annual report about the operation of the Act in relation to modern slavery and people trafficking.”
The other half-concession from ministers was “a non-[binding] commitment…that the Government would not remove to Rwanda those deemed (after a review) eligible under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy.”
Conservative MP Simon Hoare, a former minister in Rishi Sunak’s Government, defended the role of a second chamber, saying: “I think the quality of scrutiny in the House of Commons is getting lower and lower and lower, and that is in part because of executive power and the power of the whips…
“In the last Government and last Parliament, we passed up too many really crappy worded, poorly drafted bits of legislation, with the message coming back to any of us who might be doubtful being ‘leave it to the Lords, because the Lords are the experts, and they will sort it out’.”
Agreeing with Shaun Bailey, he added: “The Lords really did that…on Rwanda, and indeed on other [bills] as well.” Hoare is the current Chair of the Commons’ select committee on the constitution.
Hoare also suggested Labour should go further with its reforms of the Commons and Lords. Commons leader Lucy Powell has set up a new Modernisation Committee to look at changes to how the House of Commons works. But Hoare said of its work: “[It] strikes me as the passenger on the Titanic complaining about the music playing after the iceberg has struck.”
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“What I think the modernisation committee should be doing is how the Commons can make itself more robust in the scrutiny of its own legislation…We have been passing too much of the heavy grunt work to the House of Lords.”
Shaun Bailey also defended his role in the Lords, which was given to him by Boris Johnson despite Bailey’s much-criticised involvement in a rule-breaking partygate event at Conservative HQ.
The London Conservative and former community worker told attendees: “I don’t feel guilty about sitting in the Lord because I represent the people being nowhere near the Lords, so nobody can make me feel bad about it. I understand how some people feel it’s a continuation of privilege.
“My community is very proud of the fact that I’m called Baron Bailey, whatever it is, they’re very proud of that, and the removal of that will detach them from politics.”
The event was supported by the Electoral Reform Society, which backs an elected second chamber to replace the 800 or so current Lords, and the Sortition Foundation, which wants the Lords to be replaced with a ‘House of Citizens’ – a permanent citizens’ assembly, operating like a large jury to scrutinise laws. Polling frequently shows voters in favour of overhauling the second chamber, though there is a lack of consensus over what form it should take.
The Labour Government is currently passing legislation to get rid of the 92 remaining hereditary peers, but democracy campaigners are calling for the party to go much further. Labour has promised this is just the first step in their Lords reform plans.
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