11 Chapter 11 V7. Unicameralism–Bicameralism

The whole issue [Houe of Lords reform] seemed to bore the Prime Minister [Tony Blair], who gave no clear indication of his views.  ¹

Chapter 10 examined the division of powers within the UK and how it had changed significantly during 1997–2007. However, it also emphasized how these devolutionary measures had been implemented within rather than instead of the majoritarian Westminster Model. How the centrifugal forces of devolution could be managed within the centripetal logic of this model was a concern that had not been accompanied by any official constitutional analysis or theorizing concerning the future of the union. New Labour's approach to devolution and the division of powers consequently provides a critical case of Marquand's critique concerning ‘a revolution of sleepwalkers who don't quite know where they are going or why’.² This notion of ‘constitutional sleepwalking’ provides the link between V6 and V7.

Although it has embarked on a process of reform in relation to the structure, composition, and processes of bicameralism in the UK the government has never been able to articulate exactly what it is seeking to achieve in relation to the Upper House. More significantly, it is possible to identify a gap between the government's stated principles and its actual practice in relation to this V7 which (again) can be explained with reference to the influence of the Westminster Model as the prism or framework through which the executive has interpreted the limits of reform. Of particular significance, in the context of this book's emphasis on the challenges of political analysis in relation to constitutional change, is the existence of a scholarly debate concerning an appropriate index score for bicameralism during 1997–2007. The parameters of this debate are, however, fairly narrow.

Flinders' conclusion that the UK has moved from a system of ‘between medium strength and weak bicameralism’ to one ‘which could now be better described as simply weak bicameralism or even a ‘one and a half chamber system’ has been challenged by Russell, who suggests that the relative strength of the Second Chamber has not been weakened and may even have been strengthened during 1997–2007. This difference of opinion is important for two main reasons: (a) it provides insights into the challenges of political analysis where resource‐dependencies and exchanges are generally played out through informal channels and where the executive has clear reserve powers, but may be reluctant to deploy them too often; (b) it is possible to argue that the Index Score for Bicameralism is of added importance due to the conclusion in Chapter 7 regarding ‘executive dominance’. In this sense, the role of the Second Chamber as an anti‐majoritarian institution takes on added significance.

This chapter concludes that during 1997–2007, the UK's bicameral system remained somewhere between ‘medium strength’ and ‘weak’ and as such, a score of 2.5 remains valid. This conclusion suggests that Flinders' earlier assessment under‐estimated the vigour and dynamism that members of the ‘interim’ House of Lords have displayed since ‘Stage One’ reform of the Second Chamber in 1998. It also reflects the fact that Flinders overlooked one critical element of Lords reform where power clearly was transferred away from the executive—power in the form of patronage‐capacity through the creation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HLAC). At the same time, it seeks to locate Russell's more buoyant assessment against the latent capacity and real politik of executive politics. In order to justify this conclusion, this chapter is divided into three sections. The first section reviews Lijphart's approach to this variable, and how in particular he derived an index score of bicameralism. The second section briefly describes the process of change in relation to V7 during the decade following 1997, which feeds into an analysis of the degree to which these measures should be interpreted as a transition away from a power‐hoarding in the third section. The final section also locates the analysis of V7 within the context of emerging patterns of bi‐constitutionalism and the related constitutional anomie thesis.

The majoritarian model with its power‐hoarding emphasis calls for the concentration of legislative power in one single legislative chamber, thereby removing the number of potential veto points within the constitutional configuration. The consensus model, by contrast, with its power‐sharing emphasis, is characterized by a bicameral legislature in which power is formally divided between two differently constituted chambers. The concentration versus division of legislative power is therefore connected with the broader topic of constitutional flexibility and rigidity as the Second Chamber is likely to form some form of constraint upon the executive. Comparative constitutional history therefore reveals countries either shifting from unicameralism to bicameral structures (Morocco 1996) or vice versa (e.g. New Zealand 1950, Denmark 1953, Sweden 1970, Iceland 1991), as perspectives on the utility of centralized governance shift within those polities.³ Clearly, however, attempts to alter the balance of power within a polity need not involve a wholesale shift from one basic model of legislative design to another but may, more commonly, involve measures that are designed to transfer resources in such a way so as to amend or adjust the existing distribution of power in some way.

It is for this reason that Lijphart's methodological framework employs three variables in order to derive an index score of bicameralism, and thereby assign a score to each of the countries in his study. These are:

The two chambers of bicameral legislatures may vary in a number of ways in relation to composition and role. Most generally, the Second Chambers tend to have: (a) smaller memberships than the first chambers (the UK proving a notable exception); (b) longer legislative terms of office, with the UK again being notable through the use of life membership; and (c) frequently employ staggered election processes.⁴ More important, however, in relation to the relative balance of power between the two houses (and therefore the V7 scoring), is the formal constitutional powers that the two chambers possess. As the House of Lords' powers are restricted to being able to only delay most bills by around one year, it fits within a general pattern in which the Second Chamber is subordinate to the first chamber and an element of this relationship involves the first chambers' capacity to overturn negative votes. In the UK the formal powers of the House of Lords indicates clearly that Parliament is an asymmetrical or highly unequal model of bicameralism, and this is reflected through the manner in which executive is primary responsible to the lower house.

Although formal constitutional powers are clearly important in determining the strength of bicameralism within any polity, it would be overly simplistic to rely on them as a sole indicator of the nature of resource‐dependencies. The method of selecting members in particular can be critical in relation to whether a Second Chamber seeks to use its formal powers of rejection or delay, or indeed whether it seeks to embellish these powers through creative discretion or explicit actions that are constitutionally ultra vires (i.e. beyond its formal powers). As the second section of this chapter examines in some detail, the recent history of the House of Lords provides a critical case of this selection and self‐perception dynamic.

Appointed Second Chambers arguably lack the democratic legitimacy of an elected chamber, and as a result may adopt a certain self‐restraint or ‘voluntary impotence’ vis‐à‐vis the elected chamber.⁵ This is likely to be greater in cases where the members have been appointed for life, and as a result may have no relationship with the current government. However, perceived inadequacies in the constitutional balance, particularly concerning an extremely dominant executive within a majoritarian polity, may cultivate a more vigorous and energetic attitude amongst members of the Second Chamber and a new‐found willingness to use powers that they may have possessed for some time, but had been reluctant to use due to an awareness of their lack of democratic legitimacy. Conversely, the direct election of a Second Chamber may empower it with not only a degree of democratic legitimacy, but also the expectation that it should play an active role in legislative politics.

This notion of rectifying or balancing out constitutional relationships leads into the fact that in many countries the role of the Second Chamber is to over‐represent certain minorities or geographical areas. This is clearly linked to the precepts of consociational or power‐sharing constitutional logic, and generally leads to an incongruent relationship in terms of the membership between the two chambers, as federal chambers over‐represent the smaller component units of the country.⁶ This over-representation can be based on a simple principle of equality (e.g. United States, Switzerland), or a graded model in which the distribution of seats is not equal but smaller units are over-represented (as with the German Bundesrat and Canadian Senate). Countries with federal Second Chambers or where certain societal interests have a formal role in the selection of representatives (like France) are therefore incongruent in selection terms. Congruent systems would, conversely, elect members to both chambers by similar methods. As noted here, Lijphart uses the distinction between bicameralism and unicameralism, symmetrical and asymmetrical divisions of power, and congruent and incongruent selection methods to construct the classification system set out in Table 11.1.

As Table 11.1 suggests, using this system, the United Kingdom received a consistent index score of 2.5 (on a scale from 1.0 to 4.0, with the latter being strong bicameralism and the former unicameralism) for the period 1945–96 (no change was identified for the period 1971–96). Lijphart justified this score in the following terms,

… although the British bicameral legislature deviates from the majoritarian model [by not being unicameral] it does not deviate much: in everyday discussion in Britain ‘Parliament’ refers almost exclusively to the House of Commons, and the highly asymmetric bicameral system may also be called near uni‐cameralism.⁷

In coming to this conclusion, Lijphart echoed the work of Sartori who had similarly described the UK as ‘extremely weak bicameralism’ which ‘shades into unicameralism’.⁸  Table 11.1 aids understanding in relation to the Flinders–Russell debate because although both scholars begin their analysis from an acceptance of Lijphart's variable score of 2.5 for V7, they depart in their interpretations of how the trajectory of the UK has evolved since May 1997. Flinders suggests a weakening of bicameralism to the point somewhere between ‘weak bicameralism’ and a ‘one‐and‐a‐half‐chamber system (and for this reason records a variable score of 1.75). Whereas, Russell argues that the trajectory of change has been in the opposite direction towards a stronger model of bicameralism. In terms of locating this debate within the wider literature, what is distinctive about Russell's position is that it challenges the general thrust of opinion. Although exceptions do exist—Brazier suggests, for example, that ‘[the interim House of Lords] has become the only counterweight in the constitution to elective dictatorship’.⁹ Most journalistic comment and academic analysis argued that the House of Lords Act 1999 would lead to a weaker and more pliant Second Chamber due to the removal of the largely Conservative hereditary members (see later).¹⁰ This leads us to examine how the nature of bicameralism has unfolded in the UK during 1997–2007.

Reform of the House of Lords formed a key strand of the Labour Party's 1997 General Election campaign, and their manifesto stated the party's intention to make ‘the House of Lords more democratic and representative’.¹¹ The 1999 House of Lords Act duly removed all but ninety‐two hereditary peers from the Lords, and was designed to be ‘Stage One’ of a reform process that would eventually lead to exclusion of the remaining hereditary peers when reforms to introduce an elected component (i.e. ‘Stage Two’) were implemented.¹² A Royal Commission, the Wakeham Commission, was established to examine the topic, and its final report of January 2000 recommended that:

The government accepted the ‘principles underlying the main elements of the Royal Commission’, and in May 2000 the PM announced the membership of a non‐statutory Appointments Commission for the House of Lords.¹⁴ Plans to create a joint committee of both Houses to take forward the Royal Commission's recommendations were, however, abandoned due to a lack of cross‐party consensus. The lack of consensus was not only between the parties, but also within the main parties, not least the Labour Party. Under New Labour there has never been a clear vision of the role, responsibilities, or composition of a reformed Second Chamber. This reflects traditional tensions within the Labour Party that whilst committed to abolishing the hereditary principle could not agree what to replace it with.

Having won the 2001 General Election with an increased Commons majority, the government sought to proceed with ‘Stage 2’ reform with the publication of a further white paper—The House of Lords: Completing the  Reform—in November 2001. This proposed that one‐fifth (120 of 600) of the members of a future Second Chamber should be elected by proportional representation for a term of fifteen years, or possibly less.¹⁵ The proposals received widespread criticism, and 303 (including 165 Labour backbenchers) signed an Early Day Motion supporting a ‘wholly or substantially’ elected Second Chamber. Of particular significance was the rejection by the government of the Wakeham Commission's recommendation that the independent Appointment Commission should make all appointments, even those representing the political parties, and in this sense the government's proposals sought to maintain a critical source of party political patronage. In February 2002, a parliamentary committee added to the pressure on the government by criticizing the government's plans, and by May the government had withdrawn the white paper and had delegated the issue of Lords reform to a Joint Committee of both Houses.¹⁶ The final report of the Joint Committee was published six months later and included a menu of seven options for the composition of a revised Second Chamber.¹⁷ Both Houses voted on these options in February 2003, plus an additional resolution that the Lords be abolished. As Table 11.2 shows, the House of Commons could not reach an agreement on the future composition of a reformed Lords although the general thrust of the votes was in favour of a significant elected component.

While the Commons rejected all the options for change, the wholly appointed ‘interim’ House of Lords voted in favour of a fully appointed Second Chamber. Not only did this leave the government's plans in disarray, but the free vote also exposed the extent of divisions within the government, with the PM and Lord Chancellor voting in favour of a fully appointed Second Chamber, while the Leader of the House and several other ministers voted in favour of a significant elected component. The failure of the vote to identify an area of consensus and the obvious intra‐executive friction was further exacerbated by the fact that 174 MPs, far more than expected, voted to abolish the Second Chamber completely.¹⁸

The Joint Committee was reconvened and given the task of exploring how to proceed, but in light of the February 2003 votes, the committee requested that the government provide it with an indication of the executive's current thinking on the role and composition of a revised Second Chamber.¹⁹ The government's response, published in July 2003, encapsulated the extent of frustration and confusion by bluntly stating ‘there is no consensus about introducing any elected element in the House of Lords’ which provided little by way of a constitutional compass through which the committee could orientate its approach.²⁰ The relationship between the government and the Joint Committee became even more strained three months later when the Department for Constitutional Affairs published a further consultation paper on the topic—Constitutional Reform: Next Steps for the House of Lords—without any advance consultation with the committee.

This document recommended a fully appointed House of Lords, the removal of the ninety‐two remaining hereditary peers, and the creation of a statutory Appointments Commission to replace the existing advisory body, and the Queen's Speech in 2003 duly noted the government's intention to bring forward a Bill during the next session. This was a significant development for three reasons. (a) First, it indicated the government's intention to proceed on the basis of a purely appointed Second Chamber, and as such formed part of a gradual but consistent drift towards this position within the Labour Party. Secondly, publication without any prior consultation, not even with the Joint Committee fuelled concerns about the government's lack of probity in relation to constitutional reform. The government was perceived as acting in a rather desperate manner in which there was little evidence of a coherent or systematic vision of what it was trying to achieve, or how reform of the Second Chamber had implications for other constitutional actors. The issue of governmental integrity was a particular issue due to the manner in which the government had initially secured the support of the Conservative Party in the Lords through an informal agreement that the ninety‐two hereditary peers would not be removed until ‘stage two’ to democratize the Second Chamber had been completed. In bringing forward proposals to abolish the remaining hereditary members, but without making the future composition of the Second Chamber any more democratic, the government was widely condemned for attempting to renege on an inter‐party agreement that had been widely acknowledged and had cost the Leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, Lord Cranborne, his post.²¹

Following on from this (and thirdly), the publication of yet another white paper contributed to a growing sense that New Labour was not committed to moving away from a power‐sharing model of democracy. This suspicion gained credence through the fact that the removal of the hereditary peers had been to the Labour government's statistical advantage in terms of composition as it effectively removed the Lords long‐standing Conservative majority (Figure 11.1).

In March 2004, the Secretary of State for Constitutional Affairs announced that a decision had been taken not to proceed with the House of Lords Bill, but that the government would return to the issue in their manifesto for the next general election. Nearly three years later, in February 2007, the government published another white paper—The House of Lords: Reform—which contained the recommendations of a cross‐party working group that had been chaired by Jack Straw in his capacity as Leader of the House.²² The central recommendation was for a hybrid Second Chamber consisting of an equal number of appointed and elected members. In March 2007, both houses debated and voted on this recommendation, but the Commons voted by a significant majority for an all‐elected Second Chamber—while the Lords voted, by an even larger majority, for an all‐appointed House. Tony Blair's decade as PM therefore came to an end with the future of the House of Lords appearing as unclear and confused at it had been at the beginning.

Having described the process of reform that has occurred in relation to V7 during 1997–2007, it is straightforward to understand why the vast majority of observers, in general, and Flinders in particular, have come to the conclusion that the balance of power shifted towards the lower house, and therefore a weaker model of bicameralism. The removal of the hereditary peers, while not providing the Labour government with a majority in the Second Chamber, did at least remove ‘the permanent Conservative majority’ that had previously existed, and which Lijphart had acknowledged.²³ ‘Stage One’ could therefore be interpreted as achieving a significant weakening or dilution of a potential constitutional veto‐point. And yet, the danger of this interpretation is that it risks assuming rather than proving a correlation between reform and behaviour; it presupposes that a Second Chamber in which no party has overall control would be more amenable to a Labour government than one with an inbuilt Conservative majority. And yet, existing evidence challenges this assumption. The law of unintended consequences can throw up counter‐intuitive constitutional dynamics that take us back to the notion of auto‐limitation discussed earlier, while also preparing us for questions about constitutional anomie and morality which form the focus of later chapters. Section 11.3 looks beyond descriptions and assumptions by examining the evidence on how the relationship between the House of Commons and House of Lords evolved as a result of the reforms that have been outlined in this section.

It is possible to argue that the issue of reforming the Second Chamber encapsulated New Labour's general approach to constitutional reform during 1997–2007. The government adopted a particularistic approach to democratic renewal rather than a systematic approach, and this left them strategically and intellectually isolated and unable to articulate a clear vision of either their ambitions for the Second Chamber or how a reformed Lords would complement other elements of the reform programme.²⁴ The diagnosis of constitutional anomie that is developed in this book was therefore palpable in relation to reform of the Lords throughout 1997–2007. Of particular significance, in light of Lijphart's models of democracy is the manner in which New Labour's approach to this issue was always tightly bound within an explicit commitment to maintaining the Westminster Model, and particularly the pre‐eminence of the Commons. And yet, committing themselves to establish a more representative and democratic Second Chamber while not threatening the position of the Commons created three interconnected challenges:

These circuitous challenges refocus our attention on the debate outlined earlier between Flinders and Russell, as to whether Stage One reform of the Lords weakened or strengthened the position of the Second Chamber vis‐à‐vis the Commons. Two factors weigh on the side of Russell's interpretation. These are, first, the number of legislative defeats suffered by the government in the Lords since 1998 which certainly reflects a more active and less pliant Second Chamber, and, secondly, the transfer of patronage‐resources away from the executive to an independent Appointments Commission. Flinders’ interpretation, by contrast, is supported by changes to the composition of the Lords, and a refusal by the government to countenance reforms that would increase the formal powers of the Second Chamber.

There is little doubt that removing the vast majority of hereditary peers affected the political composition and political culture of the Lords because it left no party with an overall majority (Table 11.2). Prior to the House of Lords Act 1999, the Conservatives held 471 seats to Labour's 179, while the Liberal Democrats held 72, and the cross benchers 353, but the removal of all but 92 hereditary peers left the Labour, Conservative, and the crossbencher groupings with roughly 200 seats, and the Liberal Democrats with around 70. In addition to flattening out the party distribution within the Lords, removing most of the hereditary members also had a significant cultural affect on the chamber. In this sense, the Lords felt empowered with a certain legitimacy and confidence to play a more active role. This led King to wonder whether ‘perhaps the very fact that the reformed House of Lords was dismissed as transitional made its members feel somewhat demob happy’.²⁵

Russell therefore bases her argument on an analysis of divisions in the Lords since 1999, which shows that government suffered a total of 390 defeats in the Lords between ‘Stage One’ reform and 2007.²⁶ On its own, the data for defeats in divisions is a fairly crude indicator of V7 because it fails to acknowledge that the Lords does not, unlike the Commons, generally vote on whole government bills at second and third reading. Votes are on specific amendments, and therefore one single Bill may be responsible for a great number of defeats. In this sense, the statistical outcome of Russell's analysis risks portraying a more active or influential Second Chamber than actually exists. Moreover, the executive, through tight party control in the Commons, generally enjoys the capacity to overturn any amendment made in the Lords when a Bill returns to the Commons.

Russell's research takes these factors into account by examining the number of occasions on which the Lords insisted on their amendments. This reveals thirty‐three such occasions between the House of Lords Act 1999 and 2007 when the Lords resisted the Commons' attempts to remove their amendments. Many of these defeats resulted in significant changes to government policy, and it is therefore possible to construct an argument that V7 has been changed significantly due to the unintended consequences of reforms to the Lords. It is in this vein that Russell explicitly challenges Lijphart's description of the UK as a ‘near‐unicameral’ legislature and Tsebelis’ classification of the UK as having only one veto player—the governing party.²⁷ Although the Lords do not possess an absolute veto, Russell argues that ‘Stage One’ of the reform process has affectively increased the number of veto players, thereby ‘creating a far more plural system at Westminster’.²⁸ Accepting this thesis would logically lead to a revision of Lijphart's variable score in a manner that suggested a more balanced relationship between the Upper and Lower Houses: a score that sought to reflect a degree of modified majoritarianism. And yet, there exists a powerful antithesis.

The primary element of this counter‐thesis is that the House of Commons remains the pre‐eminent chamber for four reasons:

This pre‐eminence is reflected not only in the procedures of Parliament, but also in the convention that the Commons will prevail over the Lords. As a result, the Commons always has the last word over legislation and may seek to overturn Lords' defeats when a Bill returns there for approval. Although Russell's research suggests that during 1999–2007, the government only overturned around 40 per cent of defeats, this does not change the basic fact that the executive generally has the capacity to reverse any defeats it suffers in the Lords should it wish to do so. This forces any analysis to take into account the existence of latent or potential powers within a constitutional arrangement; which Russell clearly does, but in a rather unidimensional manner: ‘the chamber [Lords] has not changed its formal powers, but seems more willing to use them’. And yet, this veils the counterfactual that the Commons remains the pre‐eminent chamber and a future government may well be more willing to use its control of the House of Commons to reverse amendments or even reform the Second Chamber in a weakening manner.

The second element of this counter‐argument steps back from the legislative process and reviews how recent reforms have affected the Lords' capacity to play a role in the full range of Parliament's responsibilities. Parliament has two central functions: a legislative function and a scrutiny function. Although ‘Stage One’ reform may have enhanced the Lords willingness to play a greater role in the legislative process, as reflected in the number of government defeats, there is little evidence to suggest that the balance of power has shifted between the Lords and the executive in relation to its scrutiny capacity. The argument promoted by Russell therefore risks overstating the extent of change in relation to just one facet of the Lords' work.

Finally, there is a basic issue of causation to be addressed. Russell assumes a direct relationship between defeats in the Lords and the government revising or abandoning (often major) Bills. The actual correlation between these two political phenomena is actually extremely complex. The government may decide to revise or amend a piece of legislation in response to a range of pressures, of which defeat in the Lords may well be one factor, but this is quite different from inferring a direct relationship. The examples that Russell deploys in support of her thesis, ‘the Lords blocking a new offence of religious hatred, preventing the merger of the criminal justice inspectorates, and adding judicial safeguards to anti‐terrorist legislation’ (emphasis added) display this tendency to assume causation. Although, the Lords may well have been one actor operating within the policy networks surrounding each policy, it was certainly not unique in voicing opposition or alternative measures. Put slightly differently, the position of the Lords in relation to the Commons was strengthened by a highly political context, but the executive may have been less willing to concede ground had the Lords not been one element of a broader critical orchestra.

In essence, the debate between Flinders and Russell is quite simple and rests on a different approach to how Lijphart's themes of congruence (composition) and symmetry (power) are assessed. The negative assessment of Flinders is based on (a) a change in the composition of the Lords which removed the inbuilt Conservative majority and (b) a refusal by the government to countenance reforms that would increase the formal powers of the Second Chamber. The positive assessment of Russell, by contrast, rests on the contention that removing the (largely Conservative) hereditary peers advantaged specific sections within the Lords (specifically the Liberal Democrats), while also engendering a cultural change by which its members felt more legitimate and as a result were more willing to assert themselves against the Lower House. ‘Using Lijphart's terms, this moves Britain in the direction of consensus democracy’.²⁹ Russell's research is persuasive and although it might be over‐stating the case to argue that the Lords has been strengthened during 1997–2007, the available research does suggest that Flinders’ previous assessment is problematic. It is therefore possible to conclude by accepting Russell's account and inserting a variable score of 2.5—‘Between Medium Strength and Weak Bicameralism’ (Table 11.1)—that does not suggest that the Lords has been weakened.

Indeed, it is possible to draw upon an alternative source of evidence to bolster Russell's argument that ‘Stage One’ reform of the Lords has not weakened bicameralism in the UK. The HLAC recommends individuals to the Queen for appointment as non‐party-political life peers and scrutinizes all those individuals nominated by political parties. The creation of the HLAC in May 2000 therefore reduced the executive's patronage capacity. The manner in which the government had effectively created a new constitutional veto player was made very clear in March 2006, when several of the Labour Party's nominations for life peerages were rejected by the HLAC. It was later revealed that they had loaned large amounts of money to the Labour Party with the implication that the offer of a peerage had formed the incentive for the loan.

Irrespective of the Crown Prosecution Service's final decision not to pursue criminal charges against individuals associated with New Labour, the ‘Cash for Peerages' scandal forms an important part of this chapter's analysis of bicameralism during 1997–2007 due to the manner in which it provides an insight into the mentality and statecraft of New Labour. The government had created the HLAC with a remit to impose an explicit regulatory framework for appointments to the Second Chamber in order to respond to public concern regarding political patronage and corruption. It had also introduced tight rules on party funding through the Political Parties, Elections, and Referendums Act 2000 in order to address public concerns regarding private donations and party funding. To then seek to circumvent this legislation by exploiting a statutory ambiguity through which loans are not classed as donations was clearly unprincipled. Reform of the House of Lords was intended to demonstrate the government's propriety, and yet evidence of the link between party political loans and the Labour Party's list of nominations may well have undermined, rather than enhanced, public trust.

Set in the context of Lijphart's original research, an Index of Bicameralism score of 2.5 represents ‘No Change’. This conclusion for V7 corresponds with the findings of alternative methods for measuring this variable drawn from the fields of comparative politics and policy performance.³⁰ Looking at the issue of V7 more widely, in terms of statecraft and executive marginalization and veto‐capacity, it is reasonably clear that although New Labour may have been rhetorically committed to strengthening and democratizing the House of Lords during the run‐up to the 1997 General Election, this rhetoric veiled a far more ambiguous position. Lord Richard's (Leader of the House of Lords between May 1997 and July 1998) reflections reveal that he simply could not persuade the cabinet to support any measures that may have significantly altered the balance of power.³¹ And yet, it is possible to identify the ‘Blair paradox’ in relation to V7 because New Labour were willing to devolve power, in this case to the HLAC, while at the same time seeking to retain powers through ministerial opt‐outs, vetoes, or, in this case, evading the principles and processes that it had recently implemented.

Having now examined V6 and V7, it is possible to look for the first indications of inter‐connectedness or internal consistency along the federal–unitary dimension. As Lijphart found, there is usually a strong empirical correlation between V6 and V7. Figure 11.1 shows the position of the UK for 1997–2007 (and 1945–96), when the two indexes of federalism and bicameralism are correlated.

Figure 11.1 reflects the existence of significant change along the federal–unitary axis, but stability along the unicameralism–bicameralism axis. The inconsistency arising from the position of the UK for 1997–2007 arises from the expectation that an increase in V6 would be accompanied by an increase in the index score for V7. The relationship between federalism and bicameralism is therefore generally positive. This internal discrepancy is not significant on its own, but may become so if the scores for V8, V9, and V10 reveal similar anomalies which would, in turn, aid in understanding and help us dissect with greater precision this book's arguments concerning bi‐constitutionality and constitutional anomie.