The House of Lords and the British Political Tradition, to an Extent, Reflect Different Sides of the Same Coin
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The House of Lords and the British Political Tradition By Anthony Mc Manamon A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Political Science and International Studies School of Government and Society The University of Birmingham October 2012 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. ACKNOWLEGEMENTS I would like to thank Professor David Marsh for his invaluable supervision and support throughout the years of research on this thesis. I also wish to thank Dr Peter Kerr for joining the co-supervision of this thesis and his words of support during the challenges involved in its completion. Dedication to Hanna Mc Manamon Abstract This thesis seeks to develop a conception of the British Political Tradition as an idea of democracy and apply it to explain the constitutional development of the House of Lords. The British Parliament is one of the oldest Parliaments in the world and is characterised both by the stability of its governing institutions and its capacity to absorb change. Academic literature of the British Political Tradition offers a plethora of arguments aimed at explaining which idea(s) have underpinned governing institutions and sustained their longevity in the constitution. The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate how the stability of Britain’s governing institutions and its history of strong authoritative government emanate from a dominant though contested idea of democracy founded upon a limited liberal idea of representation and a conservative idea of responsibility. The House of Lords is examined from the 1688 Glorious Revolution through to the modern day House of Lords Reform process (2012). The aim is to demonstrate through empirical practice how the British Political Tradition has been the dominant idea shaping the development the constitution and defining the powers of the Crown and the Houses of Lords and Commons. Contents Chapter One: Introduction...........................................................................................1 Chapter Two: The British Political Tradition and the House of Lords.....…......20 Chapter Three: The House of Lords and the Constitution…......…..............….........83 Chapter Four: The House of Lords 1790 – 1832....................................................138 Chapter Five: The House of Lords 1832 – 1911 .....................................……......184 Chapter Six: The House of Lords: 1911 – 1951 ………....……….............…........234 Chapter Seven: The House of Lords: 1951 – 1997.………........…….....….….…..279 Chapter Eight: The House of Lords 1997 – 2012 ...................................................305 Conclusion:..............................................................................................................357 Bibliography.....................................................................................................385 Chapter One: Introduction National political institutions are one of the forms in which the national consciousness of the past has expressed itself, and in the study of the constitutional development of our own country we learn to understand what are the permanent instincts of our national mind. Masterman (1913:9). The House of Lords, the Crown and the House of Commons are the three national governing institutions of the British constitution and provide the institutional pillars upon which the constitution has evolved. In A History of the British Constitution, Masterman, contends that British political institutions are an organic product of the values, beliefs and traditions that have shaped the constitution. Indeed, Britain’s political institutions have an ancient lineage stretching back 700 years, with a constitution that is a product of historical evolution, rather than design, and, therefore, if we take Masterman’s hypothesis a stage further, a detailed examination of national political institutions will help reveal the dominant ideas that have shaped the British Political Tradition. This thesis focuses upon the House of Lords as a national political institution, but, obviously, it cannot be examined in isolation from the Crown or the House of Commons. Rather, the objective here is to show that the House of Lords, as the institution which, historically at least, represented the economic elite of the nation and the civic power and prestige of the landed aristocracy, was crucial in the development of ideas of strong and 1 elite-led government within Parliament and how these ideas were shared by both the Crown and the House of Commons. The aim is to explore the relationship of the House of Lords to the British Political Tradition, or, to put it in broader, and more abstract, terms, how particular ideas of democracy continued to dominate the processes in, and the discourses about the role of, Parliament, as the constitution evolved from a liberal to a liberal democratic one. The Crown and the Houses of Lords and Commons first emerge as the principle governing institutions of the British constitution in the Thirteenth Century and, during that century, the word Parliamentum was first used to describe the trinity of institutions governing the nation. The House of Lords itself has a still longer lineage stretching back to the Norman invasion of 1066, when it began as an assembly of Magnates summoned by the Crown three times a year. As such, the House of Lords has maintained an unbroken and constant presence in the governing of the nation, either as an assembly of the Crown, or as one of the two Chambers of Parliament, for nearly a thousand years. The House of Lords longevity as a governing institution makes it an important institution to study for a greater understanding of the constitution and to establish the link between ideas of the British Political Tradition and the institutions they underpin. As such, this thesis examines the House of Lords as an element of the broader institution of Parliament by examining its constitutional links with the House of Commons, chronicling the constantly evolving relationship between the two Chambers throughout the centuries up to New Labour’s reform of the House of Lords. 2 The House of Lords’ long and illustrious history as one of the Chambers of the English Parliament, and a Chamber of aristocratic peers which ranked only beneath the Crown in prestige and social esteem, means that it has attracted a great deal of interest from historians. The historical literature on the House of Lords focuses mainly upon its relationship with the Crown. As an example, Clyve and David Lewis Jones’ edited collection, Peers Powers and Politics 1603–1911 (1986), probably the most extensive study of the House of Lords is a diverse compilation of essays from various historians which analyse the House of Lords during specific eras of Crown history, such as the Stuart Monarchy 1603–1688, or offer an assessment of its role during times of crisis, such as the Napoleonic Wars. This literature tends to concentrate primarily on the Peerage itself, presenting information on individual Peer’s titles and estates, as well as providing an analysis of statistical records about the size and acreage of Peers estates, voting records or the number of peers created by the Crown. Modern day studies of the House of Lords, such as Bromhead’s The House of Lords 1911–1957 or the various editions of Shell’s The House of Lords, the most recent of which was published in 2007, are institutional in character and focus upon the functional role of the House of Lords. These studies examine the composition and powers of the Upper Chamber, assessing the wide array of rules, regulations and tacit conventions that determine the day to day functions of the Chamber and which define its relationship with the House of Commons. 3 Until 2009, the British Parliament was unique in having a central concentration of legislative and legal powers, with no distinction or separation between constitutional and legislative law. The House of Lords judicial function as the supreme court of appeal in the nation up until 2009, when the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom was created, meant that most of the constitutional studies of the House of Lords were undertaken by law academics, such as Dicey (1885), Bagehot, (1867) and Jennings (1934). To summarise, studies of the House of Lords are traditionally either historical critiques by historians, such as Mc Cahill, The House of Lords in the Age of George III, 1760- 1811, (2009), constitutional studies by legal theorists i.e. Blom-Cooper, The Judicial House of Lords: 1876-2009, (2011) or institutional studies by political scientists, such as Doney and Kelso, The House of Lords Reform Since 1911: Must the Lords Go? (2011). The objective in this thesis is to offer an alternative examination of the House of Lords based on its constitutional position as a political governing institution, as opposed to the traditional critiques which are largely historical and institutionally based. Consequently, this thesis