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September 1998 - March 2000
Sponsor: The Leverhulme Trust
Principal Investigator: Meg Russell
About the project
Labour came to power in 1997 with a commitment to reform the House of Lords in two stages. The first stage, put in place by the House of Lords Act 1999, removed (most) hereditary peers' rights to sit in the chamber. The second stage, to make the House of Lords "more democratic and representative" would follow. The government established a Royal Commission to consider the options, and the Commission reported in 2000.
This project sought to inform the second stage of House of Lords reform, using examples from other countries with bicameral (two chamber) parliaments. Seven country comparators were included in the study. These were Canada (which has an appointed second chamber), France, Germany and Ireland (with "indirectly" elected second chambers on different models), Italy and Australia (both with directly elected second chambers) and Spain (which uses a mixed system). The second chambers concerned also varied from well-established (Canada) to relatively new (Spain), large (France) to small (Germany), and relatively well regarded (Australia, Germany) to those considered long overdue for reform (Canada, Ireland). The countries considered were also both federal and unitary, with some chambers clearly based on a territorial model, while others were not.
The major output from the project was a book, published by Oxford University Press in 2000, almost simultaneously with the Royal Commission's report. The project also produced a series of briefing papers, some of which were fed into the Royal Commission during its deliberations. As the second stage of House of Lords reform is still awaited, these publications remain equally relevant to today's debates.
Publications
- Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas by Meg Russell
- An Appointed Upper House: Lessons from Canada by Meg Russell
- A Vocational Upper House? Lessons from Ireland by Meg Russell
- A Directly Elected Upper House: Lessons from Italy and Australia by Meg Russell
- Second Chambers: Resolving Deadlock by Meg Russell
Reforming the House of Lords: Lessons from Overseas
Labour's reform of the House of Lords began in 1999 with the removal of the majority of hereditary peers. But the long-term future of the UK's upper house remained to be considered. This book sought to move the debate forward, providing an international context to Britain's constitutional reform, and drawing lessons from the upper houses in Canada, Australia, Ireland, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. In doing so it offered a yardstick against which the Royal Commission report on reform of the House of Lords, published in January 2000, could be judged. It asked for example whether the new upper house should be powerful like the Australian Senate, or weak like the Irish Seanad; whether it should, like most second chambers around the world, have a role in protecting the constitution; in a newly devolved UK, should it, like the German Bundesrat or the Spanish Senado, have a territorial role to bind the nations and regions together? And what would be the implications of a wholly appointed or elected replacement for the Lords?
The book guides the reader through the various options for reform. Firmly practical in its approach, it also provides a unique and valuable comparative text on second chambers, which have tended to be little-studied institutions of government.
