Cameron is trying to stack the Lords – but the Labour leadership have no right to complain about it

Today (or perhaps tomorrow) the palace will announce around 30 new peers – 15 for the Tories, 10 for the Lib Dems and 5 for Labour. We already know that Doreen Lawrence will be one of Labour’s appointments, with the other four to be announced later. We also know that the government are appointing 20 more coalition peers than Labour peers in a bid to “stack” the Lords in their favour, appointing peers at a faster rate than Blair did.

That’s unsurprising, as Labour’s peers have managed to defeat the government a whopping 79 times in the Lords so far. An extra 20 coalition peers might will stop the bleeding for the coalition in the Lords.

Labour will doubtless attack the government for this blatant attempt to stitch up the second chamber. And they’ll also rail against the cost of bringing in 20 new peers – at an average cost of £131,000 per peer, that’s around £13 million for these twenty peers alone over the course of one parliament – so much for reducing the cost of politics.

But my advice to the Labour Party would be – don’t complain. Because it’s very difficult to justify.

Last year the party had the chance to get some form of Lords reform agreed, only to throw it away in favour of tactical manoeuvring. As I said at the time (urging Labour MPs to “sod tactics and vote with your principles”):

 “What Ed Miliband proposes is that Labour will both vote yes and no. Labour MPs will vote for the Second Reading of the Bill but oppose the proposed timetable – providing an opportunity for Tory rebels to back Labour and sink the bill. A whips trick. Too clever by half.”

That’s pretty much what happened of course (in the end the government withdrew the motion to avoid inevitable defeat), Nick Clegg responded to the Tory sinking of Lords Reform by enacting his own sinking of plans to shrink the Commons and Labour patted itself on the back. Because although we didn’t get Lords Reform, we did manage to stop Tory gerrymandering of the Commons that would have made it harder for Labour to win in 2015. Or as Marcus Roberts and I argued “Labour’s election hopes just got stronger – thanks to Nick Clegg”.

But a clear decision was made last year to make life difficult for the coalition – and goad Nick Clegg into opposing legislation that would have been difficult for us – rather than take a position of principle and work to secure Lords reform. I’m still disappointed by that, although I see the logic. But since the low road was taken last year – with success – it wouldn’t ring true to try and adopt the moral high ground on the Lords now.

Yes, the Lords is undemocratic, expensive and can be stacked by the Prime Minister. Yes, it’s a gross anachronism. Yes, it needs reform. But when the opportunity presented itself last year, we shirked it. A tactical decision was made and a strategic victory was won. But let’s not pretend that the Labour Party can any longer have any credibility on the flaws inherent in the Upper House. Not now. The right to be part of that conversation will need to be won again.

And complaining about a Lords system that we knowingly helped to prop up only a year ago would be a very bad way to start winning back that right.