House of Lords over-represent London metropolitan elite - Lord Foulkes
Aden Simpson
| PoliticsHome
The Second Chamber is dominated by peers from the capital, Labour's Lord Foulkes reveals to PoliticsHome, attending to a metropolitan elite, rather than ordinary people.
The House of Lords is ‘discredited,’ says Lord Foulkes of Cumnock, as he exposes its distorted regional composition, dominated by peers from the capital.
While it’s very easy to find out how the Upper Chamber breaks down by party, type or gender - issues that are hotly and often discussed - the regional representation of peers has until now remained unknown and unaddressed.
Lord Foulkes sees this as a troubling omission. By analysing writs sent out to peers, the Labour Lord has recently discovered that nearly half of the peerage resides in London.
“It’s wrong that the Second Chamber of the legislature should be so dominated by the capital,” he said.
“The House of Lords does not have enough people who understand the problems and issues outside London. The questions that come up tend to be London-oriented; the debates tend to be London-dominated; and the issues that are raised tend to be ones of concern to the metropolitan elite, rather than ordinary people.”
A written answer provided by the Ministry of Justice on 11 May shows of 808 writs were sent out to life and hereditary peers, 385 of whom live in London.
This was starkly contrasted by only 18 for the whole of Wales; 15 in the East Midlands; 19 in the West Midlands; and 19 in the North East.
Another 108 peers reside in the South East.
“It discredits the House of Lords,” he added.
When asked whether the composition hampers the Chancellor’s promise to rebalance the economy away from the capital, the Labour Lord said:
“Oh yes, definitely. I’m absolutely certain of that.
“It means we don’t have enough people shouting for it, unlike the Commons which does have people from all parts of the UK, by definition.”
“It means that not only for formal things in the Chamber, but for informal lobbying outside of that, London is dominant all the time.”
The situation is likely to get worse, he added, with reports that another 25 Tory peers will be appointed after the referendum.
“This is what worries me,” he said. “And this is what’s been happening.
“As they’ve been appointing new peers to increase the number of Conservatives, they’ve been bringing in people who are based in London: special advisors or ex-special advisors, who are more able to come in.”
Part of the problem now, he explained, is that members no longer receive extra expenses for travelling into London, or for accommodation when they arrive. “So it’s more likely the Tories are going to find another 25 people who are able to come in on the bus.”
“We used to have three separate allowances,” he said. “One was the attendance allowance; one a secretarial allowance; and the third was an allowance for costs while in London.
“And the reason that has changed was because people were cheating, and saying they lived outside London. So they brought in this flat-rate of £300.
“The irony is that the people who lived in London got a huge increase, but those living outside got a cut, and the people who were cheating were the ones who benefitted.”
This afternoon Lord Foulkes with be asking the Leader of the House Baroness Stowell how she intends to address the issue, and improve regional balance in the Lords.
“I would like her to get a group together from all parties to look at how change can be made. I think we need to have a look at the way in which peers are appointed,” he said.
“In the long term I’d like to see it replaced by a Senate of the Nations and Regions. Basically I want to see indirectly elected senators - we’d have to set up a Royal Commission or some kind of constitutional convention to work out how. I’ve been looking at the way they do it in France and Spain; in both cases they have indirectly elected senators [...] with some democratic legitimacy and regional balance.
“But while we’ve still got it here, the House of Lords Appointment Committee needs to be given a remit to say to those nominating - the Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and other party leaders - that there must be regional representation,” he concluded.
“It’ll be interesting to see what kind of answer I get, if it’ll be anything decent.”
