For the 92 hereditary friends within the Home of Lords, their time in Parliament is ready to return to an finish. The Labour authorities promised in its manifesto to complete what it began in 1999: abolishing the hereditaries.
“Is anybody stunned that I’m a fairly good parliamentarian?”
“So that you assume good politics runs in folks’s DNA?”
“And it may well run for a really very long time when you take a look at the Marquess of Salisbury.”
I’m speaking to John Attlee, the third Earl Attlee. He’s the grandson of the Labour prime minister, who was given a hereditary title again in 1955. That signifies that since 1992, the current Lord Attlee has sat within the Home of Lords, and he’s been a Conservative peer since 1997.
But for the 92 hereditary friends within the higher chamber, their time in Parliament is ready to return to an finish. The Labour authorities promised in its manifesto to complete what it began in 1999: abolishing the hereditaries.
“I’m completely glad to confess that I’ve performed nothing to deserve my seat within the Home of Lords aside from fastidiously choose my father, and he did the identical factor,” Lord Attlee says.
“However, nobody can say to me, ‘we didn’t put you within the Home of Lords to vote this manner’. I can say and vote precisely how I like, and all the opposite members of the Home of Lords, actually of the political appointees, they’re there as a result of they know somebody within the Westminster bubble.”
Lord Attlee argues that the “political cronyism” that we now have seen in recent times – the place prime ministers have crammed the higher chamber with social gathering donors and allies – has been to the detriment of the Lords, and has made it too London-centric. “The hereditary friends come from throughout the nation,” he says.
“Although they arrive from across the nation, none are folks of color and none presently are girls,” I reply.
“Sure, completely, that’s a defect. However the issue with the ladies is fixable when you wished to, however what’s the purpose of fixing it if we’re going to cease the system as a result of it’s anachronistic. On the color, sure, there’s nothing you are able to do about that.”
The truth that the hereditary friends are so unrepresentative is likely one of the many explanation why this week the federal government launched a invoice to take away their proper to sit down and vote within the chamber.
The Minister for the Structure, Nick Thomas-Symonds mentioned, “The hereditary precept in legislation making has lasted for too lengthy and is out of step with trendy Britain. The second chamber performs a significant function in our structure and other people shouldn’t be voting on our legal guidelines in Parliament by an accident of beginning.”
Tony Blair had promised to do that again when he was first elected in 1997, however he as an alternative allowed 92 to stay. That was meant to be a short lived measure earlier than additional reforms had been agreed upon. That by no means occurred, primarily as a result of it’s extremely troublesome to get any consensus on tips on how to reform the Home of Lords.
“I feel it’s solely affordable to be frightened of taking up massive scale Lords reform,” says Meg Russell, the director of the Structure Unit at College Faculty London.
“Harold Wilson tried and failed in 1968. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gave it a go. Nick Clegg fell on his face when his invoice couldn’t get via the Home of Commons. I feel that Keir Starmer does current himself as fairly pragmatic and real looking and I feel when you’re pragmatic and real looking, it’s smart to do the small issues first.”
In its manifesto Labour mentioned it will introduce a compulsory retirement age and reform the appointments course of. Again in 2022, Gordon Brown submitted a report that spoke of wholescale reform of the Lords.
“Reform could be very difficult,” Russell continues. “We have now a Home of Lords which is clearly appointed and never elected, and lots of people want to see an elected second chamber. However once you begin speaking about an elected second chamber, different folks worry that possibly they’ll begin difficult the primacy of the Home of Commons, and what electoral system would you utilize?”
“There are literally issues that individuals recognize in regards to the Home of Lords. They fairly like the truth that not all people in there’s a social gathering politician. They fairly like the truth that there are some specialists in there.”
That’s what Lord Attlee argues. I met him on the REME Museum, the place he works on renovating army automobiles for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. It’s his glad place, he says, on condition that he used to work within the heavy items trade and he represents their views in Parliament.
“We’ve bought about 400,000 lorry drivers,” he says. “And nobody else in Parliament has any lived expertise of being a lorry driver, and never solely am I a lorry driver, I’m truly a certified HGV driving teacher.” It’s that area of interest experience that he believes can be misplaced as soon as he leaves Parliament.
Attlee exhibits me the Conqueror, an enormous armoured restoration automobile that he has been engaged on. He even lets me sit subsequent to him as he manoeuvres it across the REME Museum warehouse. I ask him how he feels about the truth that his days in Parliament are actually numbered.
“I’ve performed 32 years, I’ve given a extremely good return of service. I’ve been actually, actually fortunate to have that place. I’ve performed one of the best job I presumably may with it. I feel I’ve met my obligations to society to steadiness the chance I had.”
