When I took my seat in the House of Lords almost a year ago, I pledged to campaign for the abolition of my job. Our second chamber has become a gated community of more than 800 members, making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world, topped only by China’s National People’s Congress. The House of Lords casts a shadow over parliament, and its unelected peers have a huge influence on the laws that get passed.
Last March, I joined the second chamber representing Plaid Cymru. Aged 28, I was the youngest member of the chamber, and the youngest ever life peer. Plaid Cymru doesn’t believe that an unelected chamber should form part of our democracy, but we do believe that we should have a seat at the table wherever decisions affecting Wales are being made. Since taking my seat in the Lords, I have been clear about my desire to change the system from within, while standing up for Welsh people and for young people across Britain.
As much as I have enjoyed working with members across the political spectrum, over the past year I have gained a rare insight into how Westminster functions behind the scenes and, at times, how it fails to function altogether. One only need look at the recent Lords debate investigation in this newspaper to see the conflicts of interest that persist within the second chamber, where some peers have used their positions to advance commercial interests.
With a large new intake of MPs, there is increasing momentum for change from within Westminster. The recent election resulted in the highest ever number of parliamentary newbies in the House of Commons – 335 new MPs, including 20 under the age of 30, the highest number of MPs from ethnic minority backgrounds, and the lowest proportion of MPs who attended fee-paying secondary schools. Many have claimed this is the most diverse House of Commons in history.
Yet while Keir Starmer vowed to abolish the Lords before he was elected and replace it with a democratically elected second chamber, his plans have since been scaled back to merely scrapping the 92 all-male hereditary peers. The resulting bill is a minimal reform. It falls far short of what was outlined in the Labour party’s manifesto, and does nothing to stem the jobs-for-life handed out by prime ministers to their party donors and friends.
The time is up for these outdated traditions and procedures. That’s why I have tabled several amendments to the hereditary peers bill, with the aim of strengthening it, pushing for the delivery of Labour’s manifesto commitments, and ultimately making the Lords into an elected chamber. People should be involved in the political decisions that affect their day-to-day lives, either directly, via citizens’ assemblies, or by electing representatives they trust to advocate on their behalf. Those decisions should not be taken and shaped by unelected peers, some of whom are there for no other reason than birth.
Several new MPs have already expressed frustration with outdated procedures on their side of the Houses of Parliament – from the requirement to “bob” repeatedly to catch the speaker’s attention, to the insistence that MPs must vote in person in London rather than from their constituency offices. After the general election, several new MPs founded a modernisation committee in the House of Commons to update parliament’s working practices. Something similar should be set up for the Lords, where the need for modernisation is even more urgent.
In redesigning the UK’s second chamber, we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We can simply adopt the best practices of our democratic friends. Most second chambers across the world are elected, either directly by the people or through an electoral college. Ultimately, Britain needs a democratic second chamber that ensures the people who make and shape our laws are accountable to the people who live under them.
The UK is highly unusual and archaic in maintaining a system of parliamentary appointments based on nobility, patronage and the church. The second chamber remains an anomaly and a mystery to most people. The government has a unique opportunity to change and transform this. I understand why some want to preserve Westminster’s status quo – power protects power, and those in power rarely seek to relinquish it. But the right to govern shouldn’t be bestowed by birth, title or political favour. It must be earned at the ballot box.
Carmen Smith, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, has been a member of the House of Lords for Plaid Cymru since March 2024
