- Position‹2 of 3›
- The House of Lords should remain untouched
- Argument‹2 of 2
The House of Lords is a chamber of experts
The people in the House of Lords have a variety of expertise which make it a unique and beneficial institution.
The argument
The House of Lords continues to perform an important role scrutinising government legislation, and the argument for leaving it untouched rests on the connection between that role and the way the chamber is composed. Scrutiny of legislation is largely technical work. A bill has to be read for what it will actually do once enacted: whether its drafting achieves its stated purpose, where it conflicts with existing law, which of its provisions will prove unworkable in practice. Judging that requires knowing the field the bill operates in, and the chamber's membership, predominantly experts, is what ensures it can properly assess the technical merits of different pieces of legislation. The range of that expertise matters as much as its depth. Peers come from a variety of accomplished backgrounds, including the legal professions, business and commerce, the military, and the religious community, which means a bill arriving in the chamber is likely to encounter someone who has worked in the area it governs. The experience available is drawn from all walks of life rather than from a single professional route. This is precisely where the second chamber differs from the first. The House of Commons has increasingly become dominated by a political class, members who have followed a career path through party work and parliamentary staffing into the chamber itself. Whatever that path develops, it is not first-hand knowledge of the sectors that legislation regulates. A revising chamber composed on an entirely different basis therefore supplies something the Commons structurally cannot, and the value of the Lords lies in that difference rather than in any resemblance to an elected house. Because it is a chamber of experts doing work the Commons is not equipped to do, proponents argue, the House of Lords should remain untouched.
Premises
Counter-arguments
Claims that the House of Lords is made up of experts are overstated. In the current House of Lords at least 27% of peers come from a political background as either former Members of Parliament or party donors. The House of Lords also continues to be home to ninety-two hereditary peers who owe their seats purely to their birth.
Rejecting the premises
[Rejecting P1] The House of Lords members do not have particularly strong areas of expertise.