Revealed: the true cost of the House of Lords

The Electoral Reform Society have released a devastating analysis of the state of the House of Lords in 2017 – revealing the ‘democratic crisis’ at the heart of the Lords. The Audit coincides with a key Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday calling for reform of the upper house [1] – It follows a report from the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House [2] suggested moving to a still-unelected, 600-member house by 2028. ERS polling found that 88% of people believe the Lords should be smaller than 600 members [3]. The findings have spurred the ERS to call for substantive reform of a ‘crumbling, crony-packed chamber’, with The High Cost of Small Change: The House of Lords Audit revealing: Lords-a-claiming: 455 Lords claimed more than the average take home pay of full-time employees during the 2016/17 session – despite the house sitting for just 141 days. 33 inactive peers picked up £462,510 in tax-free expenses [4] – claiming an average of £746 per vote Daily allowance and travel costs for the 2016-17 session came to over £19 million. Couch-potato peers: Nearly 1 in 10 of the peers eligible to vote throughout 2016/17 (9.2% - 72 of the 779) are inactive when it comes to scrutinising the government’s work on committees, in the chamber, or through written questions – vital roles for the revising chamber A noisy minority: The top 300 voting peers account for over 64% of all votes in divisions during the 2016/17 session – suggesting much of the work of the Lords is done by a minority of peers Not so independent: Despite claims that the Lords is less partisan than the Commons, 78% of Conservative peers failed to vote against the government once in 2016/17, while the average Labour Peer voted against the government in 90% of votes Meanwhile, Crossbench peers vote far less than partisan Lords – 41% voted fewer than ten times in 2016/17 (compared to 14% for Labour and 7% for the Conservatives) An ageing upper chamber: Nearly one in five peers (18%) are over the age of 80 – compared to just 6.6% of the over-21 population (only over-21s can sit in the upper house) House of Has-Beens? The House hosts 184 ex-MPs, 26 ex-MEPs, 11 ex-MSPs, 8 ex-Welsh AMs, 6 ex-London AMs, 11 ex-MLAs and 39 current or ex-council leaders, as of April 2017.

See report on the House of Lords below by the ERS. I do believe in having "checks and balances" on the House of Commons and much good work is done in the Lord's currently but it is currently an undemocratic and expensive mess that needs urgent reform.

"72 peers failed to speak in the chamber, table a written question or serve on a committee at all in the whole of 2016/17. 33 of them claimed a huge £462,510 (an average of £14,015 each).

New analysis shows the 33 expenses-claiming ‘couch potato peers’ took part in just 24% of votes – meaning they claimed an average of £746 per vote.

Recent analysis by the ERS shows 109 peers made no spoken contributions - with 63 of these claiming a total of £1,095,701 in expenses.

The ERS is calling for a proportionally-elected upper house of 300 members.

In 2015, the ERS launched House of Lords: Fact vs Fiction [5], showing that in the 2010-2015, £360,000 was claimed by peers in years they failed to vote once. Yet the problem of inactive peers appears to have worsened significantly.

Darren Hughes, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society, said:

“Despite some minor reforms, the problems of Britain’s broken upper house continue to fester. With nearly one in ten unelected peers failing to contribute in key ways – despite many of them picking up large sums – we have a democratic crisis in our second chamber.

“The vast majority of party-affiliated peers toe the line, while many Crossbench peers simply don’t turn up. The so-called ‘independent’ chamber is packed full of party loyalists.

“The past few years have seen one expenses scandal after another, with peers turning up to claim without substantially contributing. We have seen a barrage of appointments based on patronage. And we’ve seen Peers themselves admit they treat our upper house as a retirement home, a private members’ club. This is no fit state for the Mother of all Parliaments.

“This report lays bare the rotten state of this unelected second chamber – from couch-potato peers to lobby-fodder lords. We need real reform now – not tinkering around the edges.

“Politicians must now meet the challenge before this crumbling, crony-stuffed house declines even further. Voters want real change. It’s time for both MPs and peers to embrace it.”

The report concludes:

“The second chamber is demonstrably in need of serious reform. Whether it is the thousands claimed by inactive peers or the dominance of defeated politicians, it is clear that until we let the light in, the rot within the Mother of all Parliaments will only get worse.

“We must see parties commit to a far smaller, proportionally-elected upper house. At a time of significant constitutional, economic and political change, the need for an effective House of Peers or Senate is overwhelming.

“Whatever the final details [of an elected upper house], the principle remains: those who vote on our laws should be accountable to those affected by those laws. As we have shown, that is a matter both of principle and pragmatism.

“Now is no time for minor tinkering; the public call for a real overhaul is loud and clear. Let’s get on with meeting our democratic duty - and give voters the revising chamber Britain needs.”

ENDS

A copy of the report available to view here: https://www.electoral-reform.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/HoL-2017-Audit.pdf

General Secretary ERS Election Report 2015

Some positive news yesterday on the UNISON website about the return by the independent Election Reform Society on the recent General Secretary Election :- 

In response this statement by UNISON lay president Wendy Nichols

“UNISON has now received the final report from the Electoral Reform Society dealing with complaints made during the general secretary election 2015.

“The report confirms the result, which was announced in the scrutineer’s report on 17 December 2015.

“Any issues raised in the report will now be reviewed and dealt with through the union’s normal procedures.

“On a personal level, I would like to add that UNISON members face some very serious challenges in the next year and I would ask that we all work together now to strengthen our union and speak up for our members. They deserve nothing less than a strong, united union.”

One-Party Councils, Accountability & Corruption

Below is an email that I have sent to Katie Ghose, Chief Executive of the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) in response to a recent report she circulated to I believe all local Councillors in England. The report is called "The Cost of One-Party Councils: Lack of Electoral Accountability and public procurement corruption" by Cambridge academic, Dr Mihály Fazekas, who believes that one-party Councils cost some £2.5 billion per year in excess costs for defective contracts. The ERS believe that this report supports their call for proportional representation in Council elections and have asked for responses.

"Dear Katie

Thank you for sending me a copy of this hard hitting and provocative report. As a Labour Councillor in the London Borough of Newham which has no elected opposition and has been controlled by my Party for over 100 years, I was of course interested in its findings. I also sit on my authorities' scrutiny commissions and was myself, a former officer, employed by another Council for many years.

Firstly, I note that although you say in your covering email that there are many one-party councils "which are models of local government excellence and efficiency" the report by Dr Fazekas does not seem to support this. I am also puzzled that London Councils are omitted from this analysis since "due to the two-tier government structure and London’s special economic position within England". There are two-tier structures in non London authorities and such procurement issues are surely similar in London and the rest of England?

I also see that the London Borough of Newham is also mentioned in the main report (page 2) and used to illustrate "governance weaknesses and mismanagement of public funds such as the
London Borough of Newham‘s East Ham Campus project (PricewaterhouseCoopers, 2015)". A number of London boroughs are also listed in Table 4 as being one-party dominated.

I am not a statistician so I freely admit to have struggled to fully understand and evaluate all the empirical "big data" evidence that support the report's conclusions on the link between one party control and corruption.  I feel though that it is somewhat stating the obvious that having such control and dominance leads to a real risk of inefficiency and corruption. However, I don't necessarily think that it is always inevitable as long as the necessary checks and balances are in place.

The justification about the"red flags" dangers for corruption risks - such as there being only a single bid, not publicising tenders in the official procurement journal, too short times between adverts and submission of bid,  rigged assessment procedures etc are persuasive and well made. All Councillors should be aware of this. I suspect that there is insufficent vigour in scrutiny in many one-Party Councils and money is wasted. However, I can see that a local authority may for various valid reasons include non competitive requirements in any contract such as wanting an in-house team or a Living wage for a contracted out workforce. This does not always mean that they are corrupt or wasteful.

In my time in local government I am aware that corruption has taken place but at the risk of appearing naive, I do not believe it to be epidemic and widespread. By and large we are well served by our local government officers, although there are rotten apples and some very poor practises. Having a full competitive tendering process can be a very complex, lengthy, bureaucratic and expensive. It may well be more effective and efficient not to always have such processes. This must always be fully justified.

While I am actually a long standing supporter of proportional representation in national and local elections I do not think it is a panacea for all ills. I read the main report while on a visit to Rome, Italy (see picture above). Which is a beautiful and historic place but it is not exactly a model of good governance and anti-corruption, despite having proportional representation for their elections for many years. "First past the post" is plainly wrong and fatally flawed but often in one-party councils, opposition parties are ineffective since they are disorganised and do not receive the support needed from their national organisations who concentrate resources in marginal election areas.

I also have my doubts about the single transfer vote system since I think Party "top up" lists are inherently dangerous and risky since they give too much power to the Party machine.

Finally, I think just as important as electoral reform, local government needs structural and legislative reform. Such as making the role of scrutiny committees much more robust and truly independent of the Executive; beefing up Standard Boards; time limits on Council leaders; stopping backbench Councillors being refused information by Chief officers for no substantiated reasons; being open and transparent and stop restricting information to the public or press unless absolutely necessary; making officers' hospitality register a public document; better guidance from national political organisations on the role of elected members as being champions of their constituents and holding the Executive to account. Last but not least, we should reintroduce powers to surcharge individual Councillors who act without due care or legal authority with public money.

Yours sincerely

John Gray

(this is of course in a personal capacity and not be seen as representing the views of anyone but myself)

Update: I think I have confused the STV system for electing local Councillors with that used to elect the devolved government. It is confusing. Hat tip Tim R-P. 

Chartered Institute Housing Election 2012

I've just taken part in the first ever election for the Vice President of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). You get a email with a unique security code and you cast your vote on-line at the independent Electoral Reform
Services website.

The Vice President will become the President of the CIH next year. It's a bit suspect that this is the first ever openly contested election at the CIO but better late than never I suppose. I posted here that I know one of the candidates, Jan Taranczuk, quite well (his wife Kathy use to be my Tower Hamlets Local Housing office boss for many years). I don't know his opponent, Paul Tennant, who is the CEO of Orbit Housing Association.

If you are a member of the CIH you have until 30 January to vote. You can see their election statements here. There is an online husting tomorrow 12pm on the Guardian Housing Network blog. This afternoon on the Inside Housing site here there is a online poll (see picture right: double click to bring up detail) and both Jan and Paul were running neck and neck at 50%.