Two traditions went at once in Britain this week. Usually the Queen’s speech is heard in silence. But when the Queen announced that the Government would introduce a tradition-sweeping Bill to abolish the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords there was some jeering from the gathered lords and some cheering from the gathered Commons.
Since 1911 the power of the House of Lords has been greatly weakened. It was then it lost any effective veto on legislation. Since then, its powers have been reduced to delay only, and then to three months it the Government really wants to rush it.
None the less the lords can have a significant input into government in Britain through committee work and debate on Bills. It is difficult to see why anyone should now get such a role purely by accident of birth. Hereditary peers have sat and voted in the House for 600 years. In the evolution of government from feudal times they had a role to play. But now Prime Minister Tony Blair is right to take that evolution a step further: that government must be by the people, of the people and for the people.
Of the 1100 peers eligible to sit and vote, 750 are hereditary. Most of these are Conservatives. The large number has meant that some strange results. People who have left Britain, including a Tasmanian, have found themselves eligible to inherit titles.
The only trouble with Mr Blair’s plan is that it does not deal with what will be left: a House of unelected life peers selected from time to time by the Prime Minister. Mr Blair proposes to first abolish the rights of hereditary peers; then reform the appointed life peers; then have a Royal commission to consider further reform. Perhaps he has to start somewhere, but it seems his program is in the wrong order.