Leave those Lords alone

The Joint Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill could have saved itself a lot of bother if, instead of producing a lengthy report, it had simply quoted the words of Lucius Cary, 2nd Viscount Falkland, in the House of Lords in 1641: ‘When it is not necessary to change, it is necessary not to change.’

That was the attitude of the British people, expressed as eloquently as can be through a ballot box, the last time that a proposal to change the British constitution was put to them a year ago. The alternative vote system was rejected as emphatically as Lords reform would be if the public were given a say. But Nick Clegg has learned from his mistake over AV. His latest scheme, to reform the House of Lords in a way that would give Liberal Democrats the balance of power, will not be put to the public. Clegg does not intend to (as he so condescendingly puts it) ‘subcontract to the British people an issue that the politicians at Westminster just can’t deal with’. What he means, of course, is that he fears the public might once again smell a large, whiskered rat.

For decades, reforming the House of Lords has been a mission that has stumped successive governments. If we were starting from scratch today, no one would propose the odd mix of bishops, businessmen and cronies who pass judgment on laws made by MPs. No one would advocate allowing people to sit in the Lords on the basis that a distant ancestor was favoured by the king (such people can in any case prosper in the Commons, as George Osborne reminds us). Yet the great strength of the British constitution is that it does not start from scratch. It is the way it is because of centuries of compromise, which have given us an eccentric but effective mix of political plants, doddery elder statesmen, mavericks and political novices.