House of Lords Strengths and Weaknesses

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  • Created by: evemac
  • Created on: 20-04-18 12:53

House of Lords Strengths and Weaknesses

Advantages

  • Expertise- due to varied backgrounds like teacher and lawyers. The Upper House contains a large number of experts who can recognise faults in legislation. This commonly happens where technical matters are concerned as many former or current lawyers can recognise when the wording of legislation is unclear or difficult to apply.
  • Scrutiny: --Debates, Question Time and Select Committees are a strength to the HoL as they will be under a heavy scrutinisation as Lords are less partisan due to less of a party discipline. They can scrutinise by principal rather than by instruction of whips.
  • Time- more time the MPs to devote to scrutiny mechanisms as they don't have a constituency to run.
  • The quality of debates will be much higher because of their expertise such as the Iraq War in 2003.
  • Although the Lords cannot force the Commons to amend its legislation, it can cause so many problems with proposed changes that the Government might be forced to reconsider its proposals.
  • The Welfare Reform Bill of 1999- held up for several months as it was being "ping ponged" through the two Houses. The Lords where telling the Government to give further thought to the interests of several groups who were affected by this proposal.
  • In March 2002, the Lords rejected an outright ban on hunting with dogs.
  • Quoted as "The only true opposition in the UK" (Roberts) once Blair got his 179 majority.
  • More fundamentally- Lords will often seek to defend the interests of minority groups as they can stick with their own principles.

Disadvantages

  • The Lords lack legitimacy as so far, they are not elected.
  • The Lords are inferior to Commons in LAW- The Parliament Act of 1911 and 1949.
  • Parliament Act of 1911- Removed the Veto and allowed them only two years of a delay.
  • Parliament Act of 1949- Reduced to a year of delay. It also allowed Lords to renounce (give up) their title, as it was common they would do the job for life.
  • Between 1949 and 1997, the Parliament Act was only invoked once with the War Crimes Act of 1991 and twice between 1997 and 2002 with the European Parliamentary Elections Act of 1999 and the Sexual Offences (Amendment) Act of 2000.
  • The Lords is inferior to the Commons by convention. The Salisbury Convention mean that the Lords will not oppose government measures which were part of the government's manifesto at the previous election.
  • The Lords is a supposed bulwark against what Lord Hailsham called, in 1976, the "elective dictatorship" of government. Yet the Lords unimpressive record to hold its own. It has failed to decrease the steady increase of police power, despite expressing serious misgivings. Its most notorious defeat was the implantation of the Poll Tax in 1988.
  • Evidence suggests that a determined government with a solid Commons majority can defy the Lords whatever it might do.
  • Appointments (despite Independent Commissions) have been accused of cronyism (the appointment of friends and associates to positions of authority, without proper regard to their qualifications) as the PM chooses Commissioners.
  • Debates are ignored-  Lord Adonis stating that "debates rarely make an impact more than minor or indirect".

Evaluation

The House of Lords can be both a strength and a weakness to the Government as whole.

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