The
House of Lords Act 1999 (1999 c.
34) was an Act of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom
that was given Royal
Assent on 11 November 1999. It was a major
constitutional enactment that greatly reformed the House of Lords
, one of the chambers of Parliament. For
centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members
who inherited their seats; the Act removed such a right. However,
as part of a compromise, the Act did permit
ninety-two hereditaries to remain in the House on an interim
basis. Another ten hereditaries were created life peers to be able
to remain in the House.
The Act decreased the membership of the House from 1,330 (October
1999) to 669 (March 2000). As another result of the Act, the
majority of the Lords were now
life peers,
whose numbers had been gradually increasing since the
Life Peerages Act 1958.
Background
The Lords was once the stronger of the two houses of Parliament.
A process
of gradual evolution combined with such moments of crisis as the
English Civil Wars transferred the
political control of England, first from the Crown to the House of Lords and then to the House of
Commons
. The rising wealth of the Commons eventually
allowed it to wage two civil wars, dethrone two Kings, and
gradually reduce the power of the Lords. Prior to the House of
Lords Act 1999 the power of the Lords had been diminished by the
Parliament Acts 1911 and
1949 which stripped the Lords of the ability to block, or
veto, adoption of most bills; at most it could
delay bills for one year. Furthermore, the Commons has absolute
power when it comes to
money bills.
eighteen years of
Conservative rule, the
Labour party led by
Tony Blair won a
landslide victory at the
1997 general election,
in the process inflicting the biggest defeat for the Conservatives
since 1832. The Labour Party had for years endorsed abolition of
the unelected House of Lords in its election platforms, though
since 1992 this had changed to a policy of
reforming the House instead.
During the twentieth century successive Labour governments proposed
many bills that were opposed by the traditionally Conservative
House of Lords. In the first year of Tony Blair's government the
Lords rejected Labour bills thirty-eight times. The rejection
considered the most contentious was of the
European Elections
Bill, which the Lords voted down an unprecedented five times.
Blair claimed that the Conservatives were using the hereditary
peers to "frustrate" and "overturn the will of the democratically
elected House of Commons". Here Blair found an opportunity to
implement one of Labour's campaign promises, "reforming" the
Lords.
On 24 November 1998, in
opening the second session of
Parliament, the Queen delivered her annual
Speech from the Throne; the Speech is
written for her by the ruling party and outlines that party's
legislative agenda for the upcoming year and not the Monarch's
personal views. In it, she suggested that her Government (i.e. the
ruling Labour Party) would pursue a reform of the House of Lords.
These remarks were followed by shouts of "Hear! Hear!" from
supportive Labour Members of Parliament, and by similar shouts of
"Shame! Shame!" from Conservative peers; such outbursts were
unprecedented, for the Queen's Speech is traditionally heard by a
silent Parliament.
The House of Lords Bill
The House of Lords Bill was expected to face a tough fight in the
House of Lords. Several Lords threatened to disrupt the
Government's other bills if they continued with the plan to abolish
the hereditaries' right to sit in the House of Lords. The
Earl of Onslow, for
instance, said, "I'm happy to force a
division on each and every clause of the
Scotland Bill. Each division takes
20 minutes and there are more than 270 clauses." Lords had plenty
of other means by which they could obstruct the Government's
programme.
order to convince some peers to vote for reform, Tony Blair
announced that he would compromise by allowing a number of
hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords on an interim
basis. On 2 December 1998, the Conservative Leader of the
Opposition,
William Hague, rose in the
House of Commons to attack Tony Blair's plans. He suggested that Mr
Blair's changes indicated his lack of principles. Hague further
suggested that the Conservative Party would never agree to such
constitutional reforms that were "based on no comprehensive plan or
principle." Mr Hague's remarks backfired when Blair revealed that
the Conservative Party in the House of Lords, rather than oppose
his reforms, would definitely support them, and that he had done a
secret deal with the Conservative leader in the House of Lords,
Viscount
Cranborne. Mr Hague immediately removed Viscount Cranborne from
office, but, in protest, several Conservative Lords who held
front-bench positions resigned.
19 January 1999, the
Leader of the House of
Commons,
Margaret Beckett,
introduced the House of Lords Bill into the House of Commons. The
House of Commons passed the bill by a vote of 340 to 132 on 16
March. The next day it was presented to the House of Lords, where
debate on the bill was far longer. One significant amendment made
to the Bill was the so-called
Weatherill Amendment, named
for the
Lord Weatherill, the
former
Speaker
of the House of Commons. The Weatherill Amendment put into
place the deal agreed to by the Prime Minister and
Viscount Cranborne, and allowed
ninety-two hereditary peers to remain members of the House of
Lords.
Several controversies relating to the technicalities of the bill
were brought up in the House of Lords. One issue regarded the
language used in clauses 1 to 7, which was described by
Lord Mayhew of Twysden as "uncertain in its
effects and would leave the position of most hereditary Peers
uncertain if the Bill was enacted."
A second issue was related to the Acts of Union 1707 uniting Scotland
and England
into the
Kingdom of Great
Britain
. After lengthy debates, both matters were
referred to the
House of Lords Committee
on Privileges.
Under the
Acts of Union 1707,
Scottish Lords would be entitled
to elect sixteen
representative
peer to sit on their Lordships' behalf in the House of Lords.
In 1963, the
Peerage Act was
passed, allowing all Scottish peers to sit in the House, not just
sixteen of them. It was felt that removing all Scottish
representation would breach the Articles. The Government, however,
responded that the Articles did envisage a change in the election
of representative peers. It was argued that some portions of the
Treaty were
entrenched, while
others were not.
For instance, Scotland and England were
united "forever," the Scottish Court of Session
was to "remain in all time coming within Scotland
as it is now constituted," and the establishment of the Church of
Scotland
was "effectually and unalterably secured."
However, it was suggested, the election of Scottish representative
peers was not entrenched, and therefore could be amended.
Furthermore, the Government argued that Parliament was entirely
sovereign and supreme, and could at its will change the Articles of
Union. For example, the
Treaty of
Union joining Great Britain and Ireland required that the two
nations be united "for ever." Nonetheless, in 1922, by an
Act of Parliament, most of Ireland was
made independent as the
Irish Free
State. Thus, even
entrenched
clauses were argued to be open to amendment by the authority of
Parliament. The Committee agreed and reported to the House on 20
October 1999, that the Bill was indeed lawful in this regard.
After the Committee's first and second reports were considered, the
Lords passed the bill 221 to 81 on 26 October 1999. Once the Lords
settled the differences between their version of the bill and the
Commons version thereof, the Bill received
Royal Assent on 11 November 1999 and became an
Act of parliament. The Act then
came into force the same day.
Membership of the House of Lords
The House of Lords Act 1999 provides firstly that "No-one shall be
a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage."
(The Act treats the
Principality of
Wales and the
Earldom of Chester
as hereditary peerages, though those titles, granted normally to
the heir-apparent, are never inherited.) The Act then provides that
ninety-two peers, including the
Earl
Marshal, the
Lord Great
Chamberlain and ninety other peers elected in accordance with
the
Standing Orders of the House
would be excepted from the exclusion of hereditary peers, and that
after the first session of the next Parliament, whenever one of
these seats fell vacant, the Lords would have to proceed to a
by-election. The Act also provided that a hereditary peer would be
entitled to vote in elections for, and sit in, the House of
Commons, unless he or she was also a member of the House of Lords.
Previously, hereditary peers had been constitutionally disqualified
from being electors to, or members of, the House of Commons. The
first hereditary peer to gain a seat in the Commons under this
provision was
John
Thurso.
Act prevents even hereditary peers who are the first to hold their
titles from sitting automatically in the House of Lords. The
Government did agree, however, to give
life
peerages (the titles of which are indicated in parentheses) to
four such new hereditary peers:
Toby Austin
Richard William Low, 1st Baron Aldington (Baron Low),
Frederick James
Erroll, 1st Baron Erroll of Hale (Baron Erroll of Kilmun),
Francis
Aungier Pakenham, 7th Earl of Longford, 1st Baron Pakenham
(Baron Pakenham of Cowley) and
Antony
Armstrong-Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon (Baron Armstrong-Jones).
Additionally, life peerages were created for former Leaders of the
House of Lords:
John Julian Ganzoni, 2nd
Baron Belstead (Baron Ganzoni),
Peter
Alexander Rupert Carington, 6th Baron Carrington (Baron
Carington of Upton),
Robert
Gascoyne-Cecil, Viscount Cranborne (Baron Gascoyne-Cecil),
George
Patrick John Rushworth Jellicoe, 2nd Earl Jellicoe (Baron
Jellicoe of Southampton),
Malcolm Shepherd, 2nd Baron
Shepherd (Baron Shepherd of Spalding) and
David James
George Hennessy, 3rd Baron Windlesham (Baron Hennessy).
Life peerages were also offered to members of the royal family with
new hereditary peerages, but declined:
Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh,
Charles, Prince
of Wales,
Prince Andrew,
Duke of York,
Prince
Edward, Duke of Kent and
Prince Edward, Earl of
Wessex.
Before the granting of Royal Assent, the Lords had adopted a
Standing Order making provision for the election of peers. The
Order provided that there be elected:
- Two peers by the Labour peers
- Three peers by the Liberal Democrat peers
- Twenty-eight Crossbench peers
- Forty-two Conservative peers
- Fifteen peers, to serve as Deputy Speakers and in other
offices, by the entire House of Lords
The elections for officers of the House were held on 27 and 28
October 1999, while those for peers elected by party were held on 3
and 4 November; the results were proclaimed to the House on 29
October and 5 November. Voters were required to rank in order of
preference, on a ballot prepared by the Clerk of the Parliaments,
as many candidates as there were places to be filled. The
candidates receiving the greatest number of votes (without regard
to the ranking on the ballots, so in effect
block voting) were declared
elected. Only if there were ties would the ranking be examined.
Thereafter, until November 2002, if a vacancy occurred, the
next-highest vote-getter (the rankings being examined, again, only
in the case of ties) in the original election would fill the
seat.
Since November 2002, by-elections have been held to fill vacancies.
Voting is by
preferential
voting, with peers ranking the candidates in order of
preference. As many or as few preferences as desired may be
indicated. To win the election, a peer must receive a majority of
first preference votes. If no candidate receives such a majority,
the candidate with the fewest number of first preference votes is
eliminated, with each of his votes being redistributed according to
the second preference marked on the ballot (see
Instant-runoff voting). The process is
continued until one candidate receives a majority. Two by-elections
have been held in 2003 and a third in 2004. A further four
by-elections were necessary in 2005, with none occurring in 2006. A
by-election was held in March 2007 following the death of
Lord Mowbray in late
2006.
The Labour Government expected to eventually present a bill to
remove the remaining ninety-two hereditary peers from the House of
Lords, and in 2009 introduced the Constitutional Reform and
Governance Bill, which would end by-elections to replace
hereditaries thereby removing them through attrition.
See also
References
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