House of Lords denying democracy according to Wrexham MP
The way that our Parliamentary system works means that the House of Commons (elected) and the House of Lords (unelected) are involved in the progress of Bills that, if they pass, become Law. The UK is not alone in this, over 90 globally have this system of an upper house and a lower house.
In the UK, the House of Lords scrutinises bills, make amendments to them and also holds the Government to account. They are not a second elected chamber like the Senate in the United States of America. The House of Lords also has more time to discuss and debate, and these sessions are often of high quality and real value, making important changes to potential legislation.
At the moment, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life Bill) is progressing incredibly slowly through the House of Lords, to the frustration of elected MPs in the House of Commons and many peers themselves in the House of Lords. In political speak, this is ‘filibustering’.
Some unelected peers have chosen to use some of the procedures in the House of Lords to stop the Bill passing entirely. This has included giving speeches that are near enough identical in their content and therefore add nothing new to the debate. This Friday, peers will begin their tenth day of debate on the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill with hundreds of amendments still to consider and yet more being laid by a small number of opponents. There are 59 sections in the Bill, peers have not yet concluded debate on section 1.
We only need to look back in history to find examples where the House of Lords was a blocker of Lloyd George’s 1909 People’s Budget which proposed changes such as Old Age Pensions and National Insurance, which today we take for granted. The 1911 Parliament Act was used to override the House of Lords to ensure the budget eventually passed. This 1911 Act is rarely used: recent examples include in 2000 to equalise the age of consent and in the Hunting Act 2004 which banned foxhunting. Now it could be about to be used again.
The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill is an incredibly significant bill, which many people here in Wrexham have differing opinions about. Last year as it progressed through the stages in the House of Commons, this too took time with over 500 amendments discussed at the committee stage for example.
Ultimately, it was voted through the House of Commons with a majority of 23.
Andrew Ranger MP and many of his fellow MPs are not arguing that the bill should not be given sufficient scrutiny in the Lords, it is when that scrutiny is being abused to filibuster and deny proper democratic decisions being made, then that is a problem for our democracy.
With the end of the Parliamentary session coming in May and further sittings still slated for debate, it is a tough ask to get it to a point where it is ready to be put to a vote and returned to the House of Commons for them to consider any improvements to the bill that the Lords have suggested.
Andrew Ranger MP said,
“Should the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill fall through, it would see a democratic decision undermined because of the actions of an unelected chamber. It will once again raise a serious case for further intervention on the Lords, something I’m sure it would wish to avoid. Myself and other MP’s are clear that we will not stand for the way in which some peers in the House of Lords have taken it amongst themselves to act as obstacles to democracy, we will do whatever it takes to ensure that this bill is allowed its rightful passage through both Houses of Parliament and becomes law – as is the will of the democratically elected chamber and consistently of the vast majority of the public too when asked.”
