Meaningful, long-term change cannot be achieved unless we fix our political system too

Labour won the election with promises to partially reform the Lords, clean up politics, and improve access to elections.

Grace Barnett is Head of Membership and Database at Unlock Democracy

Change begins. That was the slogan on Keir Starmer’s lectern as he delivered his first conference speech as Prime Minister. In this speech, Starmer made no secret of the scale of the economic challenge his government faces, and was frank about how long it might take to fix. Whether or not you think the government is cynically overdoing the gloom to justify painful cuts and unpopular policy decisions, the economic challenge we face as a country is formidable.

For the sake of the country, I wish the government luck as it tries to fix the finances. But I would also remind them of this important but often overlooked point: Meaningful, long-term change cannot be achieved unless we fix our political system, too. The Labour manifesto seemed to agree with me. Labour won the election with promises to partially reform the Lords, clean up politics, and improve access to elections.

But we all know that manifesto promises don’t always survive contact with reality in government. As Labour approaches its 100th day in office, it feels like a good time for a progress report on their plans to start fixing our politics.

House of Lords: A (small) step in the right direction

House of Lords reform is in Labour’s DNA, so it’s no surprise that this is one area where we’ve seen tangible progress in the first 100 days.

The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill gets its Second Reading in the Commons soon. If passed, this would end the presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords. This is a long overdue reform, finishing up what the last Labour government started nearly 30 years ago.

The Labour manifesto also promised to introduce a retirement age for the House of Lords, but no further details about how this might work have been announced since the election.

Almost any Lords reform is better than no Lords reform, but these proposals are tinkering around the edges. The House of Lords performs its vital scrutiny role well, but it is woefully unrepresentative of the population and lacks democratic legitimacy.

That’s why this government must commit to meaningful reform of our Second Chamber. Labour’s Manifesto hinted at this, saying that it will consult on proposals to replace the Lords with a more representative alternative. This consultation process, ideally including a Citizens’ Assembly, should begin before the end of Labour’s first year in office.

Elections: A chance to give millions their voice back

Elections in the UK are free and fair, but there are still some significant ways we can make them better. Improving access to the ballot box is a powerful way for the new government to show that they are serious about reversing some of the democratic backsliding we’ve witnessed in recent years. 

The government has publicly committed to a system of Automatic Voter Registration (AVR). This means that all eligible voters will be added to the Electoral Register by default, rather than having to apply to be added by their local authority. Right now, around 6.5 million eligible voters are not on the register. That means they are missing out on their right to vote in every election, because of an unnecessary bureaucratic hurdle. AVR would make our elections dramatically more open and fair. The government already has all the data and tools it needs to implement AVR. What is it waiting for?

The Labour manifesto also included plans to give the vote to 16 and 17 year olds, but there has been worryingly little mention of these plans post-election. Giving them the vote is  simple to implement, and could help restore trust in politics among younger people, at a time where disenchantment and alienation are rife.

Finally, on Voter ID, the government has said it will look at expanding the list of IDs that will be accepted by polling stations. I applaud any attempt to make voting more accessible, but this is a disappointingly weak response to the wasteful and pointless voter ID experiment launched under the last government.  The implementation of the scheme has been an abject failure, with reports from The Electoral Commission and Democracy Volunteers both finding evidence that hundreds of thousands of voters were turned away at the General Election because they didn’t have the right ID. This new government should stop throwing good money after bad, and scrap the photo ID scheme completely.

Ethics & Integrity: What are they waiting for?

No one expected Keir Starmer (aka “Mr Rules”) to be marking his first 100 days in office bogged down in a scandal about ethics and standards in public life, but “Freebie-gate” is not going away. Defenders of Starmer argue that no one in the new government who accepted freebies has broken any rules. It’s also fair to point out that some of the behaviour tolerated by previous administrations has been many times more serious, and contemptuous of the public.

Unfortunately that is not the point. Trust in politics and politicians is desperately low, and this government was elected on a promise to reform and clean up our system. Any whiff of hypocrisy only reinforces the widely held perception that all politicians are up to no good.

Luckily for him, there is a way that the Prime Minister can draw a line under this episode once and for all, and show voters how our politics can be better.

Before the election, Labour promoted plans for a new Ethics and Integrity Commission. This new Commission would help to regularise the somewhat confusing rules around standards in government and parliament, and implement many reforms which have been long recommended by experts and campaigners.  Despite promising “to restore service and respect to politics” on day one of his premiership, little progress has been made on the new Ethics and Integrity Commission since the election. Establishing the Commission without delay would send a clear signal that this government is serious about getting a grip on standards in public life.

On a more positive note, the government wasted no time in establishing the Modernisation Committee which will look at improving working practices in parliament. One of the Committee’s areas of focus will be reviewing the rules around MPs’ earnings from sources outside parliament. Decisive action on this would see an end to part-time MPs, who leave their constituents unrepresented, whilst chasing more lucrative opportunities elsewhere. When it comes to restoring trust in politics, that can only be a good thing.

No time to lose

In its first 100 days in office, the new government has made some positive steps that will reform our politics. After years of democratic backsliding, this is a welcome change. But in order to really make a difference, Labour needs to move faster and more decisively to implement its manifesto promises on democracy while it still has the political capital to do so.