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The government’s White Paper on Lords Reform may not be perfect, but it is our best – and probably last – chance for meaningful reform for a generation. By James Graham.

The government’s White Paper on Lords Reform presents democracy campaigners with a bit of a problem. On the one hand, its proposals are still a long way from what we want. On the other, it presents us with our best chance yet to make real progress on an issue that has dogged British politics for a century.

From an Elect the Lords Campaign perspective, which campaigns for a predominantly elected second chamber, the problem is clear: only electing 50% of the second chamber – and continuing to have 30% of the second chamber subject to party leader patronage – is clearly unacceptable. Many campaigners would go further, insisting that it should be fully elected. Electoral reformers will dislike the ‘partially open list’ system being proposed. Secularists will dislike plans to retain Church of England Bishops, a strong critique of which can be found in Prof Iain McLean’s article in the New Politics Network’s The Church of England and the State (2004).

In short, there is plenty to dislike about the White Paper. So should we simply dismiss it all as a wasted opportunity, as many have done, or do we have grounds to be optimistic?

Personally, I opt for the latter. As the Independent’s leading article on Thursday said, “Almost any reform would improve on the status quo“. But there are clear grounds to be more optimistic still, because for possibly the first time in British political history, a government minister has proposed making it easy for Parliament to overrule him.

Jack Straw’s proposal to introduce a preferential voting system to decide on the exact proportion between elected and unelected members of the Lords should be welcomed as a genuine attempt to break through the deadlock that has dogged us for too long. It was a reform that Robin Cook tried, and failed, to get introduced prior to the 2003 vote on the composition of the second chamber. In that vote, the proposal that elicited the least support (after abolishing the second chamber altogether) was a 100% appointed – in other words the status quo. Yet in lieu of a clear decision, we have lived with the status quo for the past four years. It is thus unarguable that Parliament’s archaic practice of reducing all debates down to ‘ayes’ and ‘noes,’ not only resembles pantomime but can produce clearly undemocratic outcomes.

We should question therefore why it is that so many have reacted so venomously against this proposal, which would have the effect of reducing the power of the whips and thus increase backbench control of the process. That the opponents of reform and unicameralists hate this idea should come as no surprise: they must realise a preferential vote will be harder to manipulate and thus cause a repetition of the 2003 debacle. The Conservative Front Bench’s opposition is a little more confusing: after all, the Conservatives went into the last General Election with a clear pledge to make the Lords ’substantially elected’ and yet by aligning themselves with the opponents of reform, they are making that election pledge harder to achieve.

The answer, it would appear, lies in grubby party politics. Theresa May’s response to Jack Straw’s announcement last Wednesday was as much about Tony Blair’s premiership coming to an end as it was about the substance of what the Leader of the Commons was proposing. Attacking the cabinet for being ’split’ on Lords reform was fatuous in the extreme: holding a free vote on reform was a manifesto commitment and a cursory look at the Shadow Cabinet reveals that they are equally as split. Talk about the preferential vote setting a “dangerous precedent” is equally daft: no government is likely to embrace a system that weakens the control of the whips. And finally, Jack Straw has offered an exhaustive ballot, as is used to elect the Speaker, as an alternative. Thus far, no-one has taken up his offer.

Dismissing the reforms on the grounds of the electoral system proposed is also misplaced. A partially open list system – in which voters can either vote for a party list or specific candidates within each list – is not ideal. Clearly an open list would be more democratic, and it is deeply ironic that while Jack Straw is proposing that MPs vote on the reform using preferential voting he could not bring himself to propose a preferential voting system for the elections to the second chamber themselves. But again, let us be clear: a partially open list system would give voters more choice than they presently do in elections to the Scottish Parliament, Welsh Assembly, European Parliament, local councils in England and Wales, and of, course the House of Commons itself. Again, Theresa May’s attack that this system would amount for an extension of patronage was hard to take from a party which not only supports first past the post – a closed list system – but has been centralising its own candidate selection process for the Commons.

The final objection, that the White Paper is a messy fudge whipped up by politicians and that the decision should rest with the people, not Parliament, is a slightly tougher one to answer. Immediately following the 2003 vote, the New Politics Network and the Electoral Reform Society put out a joint statement calling for a referendum on the topic. A referendum would certainly decide the debate in a way that even a specific manifesto commitment (which is understood to be Gordon Brown’s preferred solution for getting around opposition from the House of Lords itself), would not.

However, and this cannot be overemphasised enough, if the reforms don’t get past the free vote to set the proportion of elected members next month, debate about which electoral system should be used or whether to have a referendum will be entirely academic.

That’s why a bit of self-discipline is needed from campaigners is needed over the next few weeks. Until the free vote is held – 7 March – the name of the game is putting pressure on MPs to vote for as high a percentage of elected members as possible. The preferential voting system makes this easy: they can give 100% their first preference, 80% their second, etc, without having to worry about the machinations of tactical voting.

This vote is by no means the end of the process – merely the end of the beginning. After 95 years and so many botched attempts, we can’t afford to let this opportunity pass us by. We simply can’t afford to let the perfect become the enemy of the good here. By contrast, by concentrating on trying to make this reform as good as it can be, we have every reason to be optimistic.

James Graham is the Communications and Press Officer of Unlock Democracy