How much power does The House of Lords have?

In theory the answer is "rather a lot" but in reality, nowhere near as much as they used to.

The main power is that most Bills cannot be passed into Law without being voted on and accepted by the Lords. Anybody can introduce a Bill into any house, but traditionally it is submitted to the Commons first to be voted on by MPs. Until relatively recently, the Lords could outright reject a Bill passed by the Commons but now all they can do is ask for concessions to be made, for exceptions and clarifications and for the Bill to be resubmitted for further consideration. For example, in the early part of Tony Blair's government, there was a massive drive to ban foxhunting but it did not come to pass for many years. Cynics claimed it was a simple case of "toffs not wanting their sport banned" but it seems the Bill was deeply flawed. Critics said that there was nothing in the legislation to prevent the prosecution of dogwalkers whose pet happened to kill a fox in a one-on-one fight in a chance meeting. They can still outright reject some bills but The Parliament Act can be invoked to bypass the Lords altogether.

They have also lost their legal priveleges in that they are no longer the highest court in the land. This function rose out of a tradition of hearing petitions of commoners to the Crown. In 2009, the UK Supreme Court was created, effectively removing the judicial powers of the House of Lords.

Further reform is in the pipeline, with all three main parties having differing views on where the Upper House should go from here. It is pretty complicated, so I'm just going to copy-paste wiki

On 7 March 2007, Members of the House of Commons voted ten times on a variety of alternative compositions for the upper chamber. Outright abolition, a wholly appointed house, a 20% elected house, a 40% elected house, a 50% elected house and a 60% elected house were all defeated in turn. Finally the vote for an 80% elected chamber was won by 305 votes to 267, and the vote for a wholly elected chamber was won by an even greater margin: 337 to 224. Significantly this last vote represented an overall majority of MPs, giving it huge political authority. Furthermore, examination of the names of MPs voting at each division shows that, of the 305 who voted for the 80% elected option, 211 went on to vote for the 100% elected option. Given that this vote took place after the vote on 80% – whose result was already known when the vote on 100% took place – this shows a clear preference for a fully elected upper house among those who voted for the only other option that passed. But this was nevertheless only an indicative vote and many political and legislative hurdles remained to be overcome for supporters of an elected second chamber. The House of Lords, soon after, rejected this proposal and voted for an entirely appointed House of Lords. In July 2008 Jack Straw, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, introduced a white paper to the House of Commons proposing to replace the House of Lords with an 80-100% elected chamber, with one third being elected at each general election, for a term of approximately 12–15 years. The white paper states that as the peerage would be totally separated from membership of the upper house, the name "House of Lords" would no longer be appropriate: It goes on to explain that there is cross-party consensus for the new chamber to be titled the Senate, however in order to ensure the debate remains on the role of the upper house rather than its title, the white paper is neutral on the title of the new house.

I do favour a part appointed Upper House. My inner conservative (not entirely suppressed btw dblboggie) believes that the system still works so there is no need to change it. I am also happy to have Bishops in the House of Lords - something I disagree with where the NSS is concerned - simply because we have a state church. That church, which has the Monarch as its spiritual and temporal head, has the right to such a privelege in an appointed chamber. My inner wants a part-elected chamber too but the options really must be apolitical as the House of Lords has been for most of its history. I do not favour the reforms put in place by the last Labour government because they got rid off hereditary peers and replaced them with personally favoured political appointments.

I prefer things as we have them. Two bodies elected by the people. The Senate used to be appointments by each state until 1913. That constitutional amendment needs to be done away with in the next few years.

You folks over there seem to have one-half representation (House of Commons). But as usual, who am i to complain?

Fear not Matt, I've always suspected that there was some conservatism yet in you.

As for me, I may be wrong, but I see the House of Lords as it exists today as a potential counterbalance to what can be the naked partisan politics of the House of Commons. Since the Lords are peers and not elected, the need not take a party position on any legislation that comes before them. This would seem to me to be a fairly sane situation here.

It would seem that the Commons wish to eliminate this a-political element in favor of enhancing party power.

Does this make any sense to you Matt?

dblboggie wrote:As for me, I may be wrong, but I see the House of Lords as it exists today as a potential counterbalance to what can be the naked partisan politics of the House of Commons.

For once, I agree with every word you say. An extra failsafe in place to prevent one party having too much sway in Parliament and consequently, over the whole political system and lawmaking process.

dblboggie wrote:It would seem that the Commons wish to eliminate this a-political element in favor of enhancing party power.

Does this make any sense to you Matt?

Absolutely but I think there is another element for why Labour were so vigorous in pursuing reform of the Lords. It isn't about fairness or devolving power to average people, hell it wasn't even about removing traditions that were perceived as obsolete or counterproductive in the 21st century, but a perception in the Labour Party that the Lords was made up of old Tories - and too many for their liking. Perhaps it was, but the only real abuse of that power I can remember in my lifetime was the fierce resistance from the Lords to the banning of foxhunting... an issue I really couldn't care less about either way and isn't really important to our society in the grand scheme of things.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:As for me, I may be wrong, but I see the House of Lords as it exists today as a potential counterbalance to what can be the naked partisan politics of the House of Commons.

For once, I agree with every word you say. An extra failsafe in place to prevent one party having too much sway in Parliament and consequently, over the whole political system and lawmaking process.

*marks this day in his calendar*

Seriously though, I think the House of Lords should be left as is. I think it is a very sane institution for the U.K. and is, as you state, a very good failsafe for preventing one party rule.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:It would seem that the Commons wish to eliminate this a-political element in favor of enhancing party power.

Does this make any sense to you Matt?

Absolutely but I think there is another element for why Labour were so vigorous in pursuing reform of the Lords. It isn't about fairness or devolving power to average people, hell it wasn't even about removing traditions that were perceived as obsolete or counterproductive in the 21st century, but a perception in the Labour Party that the Lords was made up of old Tories - and too many for their liking. Perhaps it was, but the only real abuse of that power I can remember in my lifetime was the fierce resistance from the Lords to the banning of foxhunting... an issue I really couldn't care less about either way and isn't really important to our society in the grand scheme of things.

Ah... and now the other shoe drops. This makes perfect sense. Though I seriously doubt that the Lords are nearly as Tory as Labour would like one to believe.

dblboggie wrote:Ah... and now the other shoe drops. This makes perfect sense. Though I seriously doubt that the Lords are nearly as Tory as Labour would like one to believe.

Doubtful, or no Labour government would ever have been able to get anything done. As far as the hereditary peers are concerned, they would have been split between the nouveau riche of the 18th-19th century (who would still probably feel an allegiance to the Lib-Dems as a natural progression from the Whigs) and the landowners of a much older period who would in all likelihood by Conservative.

It is also amusing that Labour sought to increase their influence in an institution they have traditionally wanted to abolish as republicans and thereby anti-monarchist.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:

dblboggie wrote:Ah... and now the other shoe drops. This makes perfect sense. Though I seriously doubt that the Lords are nearly as Tory as Labour would like one to believe.

Doubtful, or no Labour government would ever have been able to get anything done. As far as the hereditary peers are concerned, they would have been split between the nouveau riche of the 18th-19th century (who would still probably feel an allegiance to the Lib-Dems as a natural progression from the Whigs) and the landowners of a much older period who would in all likelihood by Conservative.

Precisely so.

The_Amber_Spyglass wrote:It is also amusing that Labour sought to increase their influence in an institution they have traditionally wanted to abolish as republicans and thereby anti-monarchist.

Indeed. This actually raises a question for me. I am interested in the rank-and-file thinking on the institution of the Monarchy and royalty in general. I find it interesting that this institution yet persists in a country which flirted with a political ideology so far to the left. How does one account for the enduring presence, not just of the House of Lords, but of the Monarchy itself?

Is it just a matter of national pride and the sheer dint of tradition? Or are there other factors involved?

Seems I missed this one.

dblboggie wrote:This actually raises a question for me. I am interested in the rank-and-file thinking on the institution of the Monarchy and royalty in general. I find it interesting that this institution yet persists in a country which flirted with a political ideology so far to the left. How does one account for the enduring presence, not just of the House of Lords, but of the Monarchy itself?

Is it just a matter of national pride and the sheer dint of tradition? Or are there other factors involved?

I'm sure there are a million factors. I can only realy list the ones from my own perspective.

Well firstly, the Crown has such little power and hasn't had to since The Glorious Revolution when the monarchy was so fundamentally changed from one of absolute rule to one of a figurehead with a few administrative powers, the most important of which is the power to dissolve and open Parliament. This doesn't seem like much, but she could in theory refuse to dissolve Parliament or refuse to allow a party to form a government.

Secondly, tradition and national pride certainly plays their part. We do like pomp and ceremony and the Royal family certainly provides that in abundance. But more than that, we take a lot of pride in our heritage, in our history and its conservation. As an archaeologist who has visited many historic sites across the world I can with all honesty say that we have the best system in its conservation and preservation and making it accessible and informative (Stonehenge is perhaps the exception in being so badly managed - national disgrace in my opinion). Most weekends here somewhere in the country is some sort of historic festival and the retention of the monarchy is really an extension of that. Of course, sometimes here popularity wains and I suspect people might start to feel differently when Charles is King.

Thirdly I think there is always wisdom in the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it". The system works so why abolish it for the sake of it? People are more concerned about a great many things these days than simply getting rid of a monarchy because it might seem anachronistic in the modern day. When people are concerned about jobs, the economy, the environment, terrorism, crime, education and an immigration system in total disarray I think that the role of the monarchy in our political system is perhaps nothing to worry about while it is doing us no harm.

I personally don't buy the "tourism" reason to keep the monarchy. I find it rather weak and I'm not really sure that people come here to see the Queen or her family, surely most come here to see the historic buildings and monuments, places that you will almost not see a member of the royal family every day.

Finally, Prince Philip gives us a lot to laugh about

But I would like to ask you as a non-Brit, if you were inclined to ever come over here, do you think your view of this country as a tourist destination would be changed if there was no longer monarchy? Would you feel the experience would be less... I don't know... authentic? Basically is the monarchy intrinsically part of the reasons you or other Americans might want to come to the UK and see Buckingham Palace or the Tower of London or Hampton Court etc?