11 Problems With The House Of Lords Explained Using Cats

In 1911, the Parliament Act was introduced, which promised that it wouldn’t be long before the undemocratic House of Lords would be fixed. 103 years later, nothing has changed. We’ve put together a list of some of the biggest problems with the Lords (along with some cute cat pictures to keep things interesting).

1. Lords have no democratic accountability

Harry Whittier Frees / Via wordpress.com

The British public didn’t vote for any of these people, but they get the power to propose, amend and vote on the nation’s laws, as well as plenty of money and perks...

2. Peers can claim £300 a day just for turning up

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Lords can claim up to £300 plus travel expenses for every day they attend Parliament - even if they only stay for a few minutes. Lord Hanningfield was caught ‘clocking in’ like this on more than ten occasions, claiming that he needed the money to look after his chickens!

3. The Lords is getting bigger and more bloated all the time

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Every new government wants to appoint more Lords to strengthen its position, so the House keeps growing - and could soon hit 1000 members, or even more. The Electoral Reform Society predicts that depending on the result of the next election, the number of Lords could even reach 2000!

4. Lords can block popular legislation for up to a year by bouncing it back to the Commons

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No matter how much support a law has from voters and elected representatives, the unelected Lords can keep delaying it by sending it back to the Commons. The only way to stop this is by using the Parliament Act, which was needed to force important provisions (such as equalising heterosexual and homosexual ages of consent) past an unwilling House of Lords. Even then, the Lords has significant power to delay the introduction of new laws it doesn’t support.

5. There are still 92 hereditary Lords

Hereditary Lords are the ultimate expression of an antiquated, undemocratic system - a role in lawmaking given out based entirely on ancestry rather than merit or popular will. 92 Lords got into the House that way - and even though lordships can no longer be inherited…

6. ...the “removed” hereditary Lords keep coming back!

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Even though most of the hereditary peers were supposedly removed from the Lords in 1999, every time one of the sitting hereditaries leaves, the expelled peers hold a bizarre “by-election” to replace them, where only hereditary peers are eligible to stand or vote. This ensures that the number of Lords admitted purely on the basis of their parentage won’t fall below 92 for a long time...

7. You can keep your lordship while in prison

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Even after recent reforms, it’s still possible to keep your seat in the Lords after having committed crimes - as long as a Lord isn’t given a prison sentence of a year or longer, they can return to lawmaking as soon as they leave prison (and even serious crimes such as sexual assault can carry prison sentences of less than a year).

8. The government can hand out peerages to whomever it likes

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It’s easy for peerages to be given out to reward party cronies - indeed, the system encourages it, as the government wants to make it as easy as possible to pass its legislation through the Lords. Baroness Boothroyd recently criticised the way in which Prime Ministers flood the Lords with “lobby fodder” purely for party political gain.

9. 26 Bishops get guaranteed seats in the Lords

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No other group, religious or secular, gets so much as one guaranteed seat, but the Church of England is automatically given 26 representatives in the Lords, even as church attendance keeps falling.

10. Peers can have serious conflicts of interest

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Many Lords have declared extensive financial interests, often in areas directly related to issues they are voting on - one in five Lords who voted on the Health and Social Care Bill had connections to private healthcare companies!

11. Women are vastly underrepresented

Catherine H. Palczewski Postcard Archive / Via uni.edu

Despite almost anyone over 21 being eligible for nomination to the Lords, less than a quarter of its members are female. Is this really acceptable?

Doesn't something need to be done about this?

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Unlock Democracy is calling on all party leaders to commit to introducing a directly elected second chamber in the next parliament. We need your help. The countdown to the General Election has started, and this is our chance to show the parties that there is real demand for Lords reform. You can contact Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and David Cameron here.