Last night the House of Lords were debating the Bill which would authorise the government to trigger Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty; the triggering of which will be the start of the process by which the United Kingdom would leave the European Union.

The people of the United Kingdom voted in a referendum in the middle of 2016 – the question for which was “Should the United Kingdom remain a member of the European Union or leave the European Union”.  Unfortunately however, the terms of the referendum did not oblige that the government enact the resultant decision (to leave the EU) and so a political debate ensued which concerned whether or not the UK government had the automatic right to trigger Article 50 or whether or not parliament had to vote on this matter.  It was decided that parliament had to approve the triggering of Article 50 and so a Bill was put before Parliament requesting the authorisation to proceed.

There are two key chambers involved in the progress of a Bill becoming Law in the UK: the House of Commons and the House of Lords; the former being comprised of entirely elected officials, and the House of Lords comprising entirely unelected officials.  After some debate, a Bill was passed in the Commons authorising the government to trigger Article 50; after which the Bill passed to the House of Lords.  Several amendments were proposed, amongst which was an amendment to the effect that Parliament should be guaranteed a vote at the end of the negotiating process – so that Parliament could approve (or not) the resultant terms and conditions of the departure from the EU.

One aspect of this which jumps out at me was one of the comments made by a peer (House of Lords) during the debate; Lord Forsyth said “…the House should reject this amendment for what it is, which is an unelected chamber trying to frustrate the will of the democratically elected government and of the people…”.

To which my response would be; “…if you do not believe that you have any authority in the process of government due to the fact that you are unelected, then why are you taking part in the debate?  Lord Forsyth has been an unelected peer since 1999, and according to the chamber’s online records (dating back to May 2013) has voted on a total 230 occasions, during which time he gave 836 speeches.  Presumably, Lord Forsyth believes that the unelected chamber should only be employed to ‘support’ the will of the democratically elected government?

The presence of an unelected chamber in the British Parliamentary process is something which has been subject to debate many times, but which remains very firmly unelected despite several attempts at reform: the most recent attempt (2012) failed before it reached the House of Lords due to a lack of support from the government of the day.  Indeed in 2007 there was a vote to make 80% of the chamber electable which was supported by the government of the day… but which was voted down by the House of Lords itself – including I might add Lord Forsyth (the very person who now maintains that the upper house should not frustrate the will of the democratically elected government”.  It certainly can be viewed as hypocritical that a Lord can maintain (and exercise) the right to vote against the government of the day when it suits, whilst lecturing others on the need to support… clearly this has nothing to do with the ‘colour’ of the government of the day!

Side-stepping any potential hypocrisy for the present, if we follow the logic of Lord Forsyth said to its conclusion, the House of Lords should represent no more than a reflection of the government position.  In such an example, what purpose would such a chamber serve?  Surely, a Second chamber can only provide value to a political process if it has the freedom to act independently of the government, otherwise it risks becoming a rubber-stamping exercise.  (This leaves aside the question of the Salisbury Doctrine which concerns the convention that the Lords do not vote down Bills which relate to the manifesto pledges of the elected government.)

If a process of government is to act independently, then the politics of the government should not bring any weight to bear on the matter.  This should apply to all agencies of government – elected or otherwise.  If a process of government is not intended to act independently, then what can its purpose be?  Similarly, if we are to ask people (or members) to debate an issue in depth, then it would follow that such a debate would have a bearing on the outcome; if the debate is a mere formality and will not be given any consideration by the people voting then it becomes almost entirely redundant.  We might as well not recognise anything as law until some random nonagenarian has signed a piece of paper…