Substantive Representation: Ethnic Minority and White Lords’ Participation in

Parliamentary Question ‘Debates’ on Ethnic Minority Issues

The notion that the British Parliament ought to be reflective of the population is now widely

accepted in political discourses. Whilst there now exists substantial scholarship on women’s

representation, the representation of ethnic minorities remains highly under-researched.

Currently, ethnic minorities are underrepresented in both Houses of Parliament. As of 2017,

8% of the House of Commons, and 5.5% of the Lords was black or minority ethnic (BME)

(Audickas and Apostolova, 2017: 6, 8). In comparison 13% of the population was BME

according to the 2011 census (ONS, 2013). Whilst Parliament is clearly a long way from

descriptively representing ethnic minorities, what is unclear is how existing BME

parliamentarians substantively represent ethnic minority interests. Misleadingly, ‘Parliament’

is often used synonymously with the House of Commons, and literature on BME representation

has largely overlooked the House of Lords. This has provided an incomplete picture of

representation in Parliament as a whole. Indeed, as Norton (2013: 16) notes, although the

Houses are not twins, “[the House of Lords] is still part of the family”. Despite this, the Lords

has been viewed as an unrepresentative chamber detached from the populace it serves (Bochel

and Defty, 2012: 82). Owing to their unelected nature, attempts to apply concepts of

representation to them are hampered by confusion. Firstly, over whether the second chamber

is supposed to provide representation at all; and secondly, if so, what form this should take

(2012: 96). This is further complicated by the fact that peers’ representative roles appear to be

largely defined by themselves (2012: 95).

Substantive representation can be said to be the most robust measure of how a

legislative member represents, as it manifests through deliberate activity “…in the interest of,

[or] as the agent of, someone else” (Pitkin, 1967: 113). Some studies have analysed

parliamentary questions (PQs) as indicators of substantive representation (for example, Bird,

2005; Saalfeld and Bischof, 2013). However, despite the centrality of PQs to the life of

Parliament, their value as a representative mechanism has not been explored in detail (Martin,

2011: 260-62). Saalfeld’s (2011) study of over 16,000 PQs found that BME MPs asked

significantly more questions about ethnic diversity and equality. However, no comparable

research has been done for the upper chamber. This analysis therefore aims to provide some

insight into how BME substantive representation manifests in the House of Lords, through a

small-scale comparative study of ethnic minority and white peers’ use of PQs. By analysing

participation in ‘debates’– consisting of main questions and supplementary questions – this

study finds that BME peers, particularly women, participate disproportionately more, and make

more evidential contributions than white peers when questions pertaining specifically to ethnic

minorities are raised on the floor.

Research Design

This study drew on PQs from Hansard. The interactions analysed were officially oral questions

to government ministers. Although not technically debates, these interactions took the form of

debates. Owing to the self-regulating nature of the Lords, PQs contain many more

supplementary (follow-up) questions than those in the Commons. These questions, which must

be on the same subject, are spontaneous and “…can vary from the factual to the highly political

in content” (House of Commons, 2013). This study, unlike others on PQs, takes into account

not only the main questioner but those spontaneously contributing supplementary questions

which form part of the ‘debate’. These interactions will therefore be referred to as debates in

this study. This holistic approach gives a good picture of who voluntarily contributes to these

debates in their entirety, and how they do so.

Martin (2011: 260) suggests that PQs signify the representational orientation of the

questioner. A comparison between PQs asked specifically about ethnic minority with those

asked about those issues in general allows for an assessment of how BME peers use PQs as

instruments of substantive representation, particularly as compared to white peers. The study

therefore compared five BME-specific to five non-BME debates, with each covering the same

overarching issue. Each pair of debates was selected from the same parliamentary session for

consistency. Table 1 summarises these.

Table 2 shows the number of participants and contributions in each debate. There was

a total of 47 individual participants; 10 main questions; and 63 supplementary questions. This

gives a ratio of 6 follow-up questions for every main question asked, evidence of the debate-

like nature of Lords’ PQs. The answering Ministers’ responses were disregarded in the

analysis, as the remit of the study was voluntary parliamentary questions posed to the

government, rather than the government responses communicated through the ministers.

Furthermore, given that the answering minister in every debate was a white male, to include

the ministers’ responses would have significantly skewed the participation rates for this group.

Participants in the debates were then coded according to a number of variables:

race/ethnicity; gender; number of contributions; number of words spoken; and contribution

‘type’. Two contribution types in particular were analysed: evidential- those providing

empirical data or citing findings in reports and studies; and anecdotal- those about personal or

impersonal experiences relating to the debate.

Table 1: Selection of PQs analysed

(Source: Hansard. Full references in Table A in the Appendix)

Table 2: Number of participants and PQs asked in each debate BME-specific Non-BME

Participants PQs Participants PQs

Qualifications 8 9 6 7

Bullying 6 7 8 9

NHS Nursing 5 6 5 6

Educational Attainment 5 6 5 6

Mental Health 6 7 9 10

Total 30 35 33 38

(Answering government minister excluded)

Results

Racial composition of debates

Figure 1 shows the racial composition of debates. Overall, the sample of debates included 7

BME and 40 white peers. 15% of participants in the 10 debates were therefore BME, compared

to around 5-6% of the House during the periods analysed (Low, 2012; Wood and Cracknell,

2013; Audickas, 2016). This suggests that BME peers generally participate disproportionately

more in debates in general. However, given that the Lords are there to “…bring experience and

knowledge… to their role of examining matters of public interest” (Parliament, 2017), one

might anticipate that BME peers would be more suited, and thus more likely, to make

Question Summary

Session Subject BME-specific debates Non-BME debates

2012-13 Qualifications Equality of access to

apprenticeships for BME

young people

Improving the quality and

status of vocational education

2013-14 Bullying Increase in racist and

Islamophobic bullying

Support for self-excluded

bullied children

2013-14 NHS Nursing Lack of BME nursing

directors

Inadequate levels of nursing

staff

2013-14 Educational Attainment Attainment gap for black

British students

Raising levels of proficiency

among secondary age children

2015-16 Mental Health Fairness in BME mental

health treatment

Transparency about quality of

mental health services

contributions in debates focused on ethnic minority issues than their white peers. The findings

support this assumption. 26% of individual participants in the BME-specific debates were

ethnic minorities. This represents more than 4 times their proportion in the House. This was

also double their participation in the non-BME debates, which was 13%– still considerably

more than their proportion in the house.

All ethnic minority contributors in the non-BME debates were Asian peers, whereas

Asians made up only half of participants in BME-specific debates. Of the four BME peers who

participated in the non-BME debates, three also participated in at least one of the BME-specific

debate. Interestingly, although one BME peer in the sample only made contributions in a non-

BME debate, this was to raise an issue in the interests of ethnic minorities. In a general debate

about bullying, Baroness Uddin asked what the government was doing about racism and

Islamophobia (HL Deb 16 May 2013, c522). This can be interpreted as a clear attempt to put

an ethnic minority issue onto the agenda, and thus the use of a PQ as an instrument of

substantive representation.

Figure 1: Racial composition of BME-specific and non-BME debates.

(Source: Hansard data; author’s analysis)

The above findings also generally hold true when debates are considered individually.

In 4 out of 5 of the debates, BME participation was higher in BME-specific debates than in

non-BME ones. This was with the exception of the NHS Nursing debate. Interestingly, this was

also the only BME debate that was initiated by a white peer. Without a large-scale study of

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Lords’ PQs, it is difficult to tell whether the race of the main questioner has any bearing on the

ethnic composition of the debate. Nevertheless, the results clearly indicate that overall, ethnic

minority peers are more likely to participate in BME-specific debates.

Gender composition of debates

Figure 3 shows the gender breakdown of all ethnic minority and white participants in the

sample. Of all the white participants, 45% were female. However, the BME participants were

overwhelmingly female, at 86%. Given that the House of Lords is heavily male, the female

participation in these debates is disproportionally high. During the period studied, the number

of female members of the House of Lords was somewhere between 22%-25% (McGuinness,

2012: 3; Parliament, 2016). Data on the gender breakdown of minority peers over time is

scarce, but according to Operation Black Vote (OBV), women made up 39% of BME peers in

2015 (OBV in Audickas 2016). Given this level of underrepresentation, the disproportionate

rate of female participation, particularly of BME females, is significant1.

Figure 2 shows the shows the gender composition of the two categories of debates,

disaggregated by race. Overall, the gender split in all ten debates was roughly equal– on

average, 49% male and 51% female. This was also generally true of both the BME-specific

and non-BME debates. However, it is only once aggregated by race that disparities between

the two debates become evident. Firstly, whilst roughly the same proportion of BME men

participated in both types of debates, BME women participated over two times more in BME-

specific debates than in non-BME debates. They also participated at rates far higher than BME

men in both debates. However, white males were still the primary contributors in BME-specific

debates, making up almost half of contributors. A considerable disparity also exists between

white female participation in both debates, which was 26% in BME-specific debates and 44%

in the non-BME ones.

The disproportionate female participation can arguably be attributed to the nature of

debates, which were all on social policy issues. Some studies have suggested that women are

more likely to address issues relating to children, social policy and health care (for example,

Thomas, 1991; Wangnerud, 2009: 62-3). To determine whether this is a systematic

phenomenon in the House of Lords, a comparative analysis between different types of debates

would be required. If it is indeed true, it would suggest that when it comes to social issues

1 Differences between BME and white, and male and female participation unlikely to be caused by age as

all have a similar average age of around 70.

concerning BME people, it is overwhelmingly BME women who provide the most substantive

representation on the floor of the upper House

Figure 2: Gender composition of debates, disaggregated by race

(Source: Hansard data; author’s analysis)

Figure 3: Gender composition of all individual BME (n=7), and all white (n=40) participants

in sample

(Source: Hansard data; author’s analysis)

Number of contributions

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In total, there were 73 separate contributions made in the whole sample– 35 in the BME-

specific debates; and 38 in the non-BME ones. Figure 4 shows the racial breakdown of these.

Again, we see a high rate of contributions by BME peers in the former than in the latter. In

BME-specific debates, 46% of the contributions made were by ethnic minority peers; in non-

BME debates, this was 11%. Given that only 26% of participants in BME-specific debates

were ethnic minorities, that they accounted for 46% of the contributions indicates a significant

contribution rate among that group. This deserves closer inspection.

In the BME-specific debates, there were 6 BME contributors, with 17 PQs between

them (including 4 main questions). This gives an average contribution of 2.8 per person across

all 5 debates. In comparison, there were 17 white contributors with a total of 18 PQs– an

average of around 1 per person. One ethnic minority peer was a big contributor across the

BME-specific debates. Baroness Hussein-Ece participated in 4 out of 5 of the BME-specific

debates; and her contributions accounted for 38% of all BME contributions. However, this does

not skew the results to any significant degree, because the other 5 contributors still had an

average of around 2 PQs between them. On average then, BME peers made roughly 2 times

more contributions in BME-specific debates than their white peers. Their disproportional

contribution rate also holds true for each individual BME-specific debate where in 4 out of 5

cases, their contributions accounted for at least a third of all contributions; and 49% on average.

Figure 4: Racial breakdown of all contributions in BME-specific (n=35), and non-BME (n=38)

debates.

(Source: Hansard data; author’s analysis)

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In comparison, ethnic minority peers’ contributions in the non-BME debates ranged

from 0-17% of total contributions, and they made an average of 1 contribution. 26 white

speakers made 34 contributions– an average of 1.3 per peer. White peers therefore only had a

slightly higher contribution rate than BME peers in these debates. One potential reason

underlying the disproportionally high rate of ethnic minority peers’ contributions on BME-

specific issues is the notion of ‘giving way’. Because the house is ‘self-regulating’ – there is

no Speaker with the power to call peers to ask questions – the House decides who asks

supplementary questions (Norton, 2013: 125). Baroness Grey-Thompson has observed that

peers usually give way to speakers who are perceived to be most knowledgeable about the issue

in discussion (remark to author). It may be the case that, whilst more white peers may wish to

participate in BME-specific debates, BME peers are given preference because of their

supposed personal knowledge of the issues.

Length of contributions (words)

BME-specific debates also involved longer contributions in terms of words spoken. 2447

words were spoken by 23 contributors in all 5 BME-specific debates; and 2613 by 30 in non-

BME ones. This means that on average, each contributor in the former debates spoke 106

words, compared to 87 in the latter. Table 2 summarises this data. A look at the differences

between ethnic minority and white peers’ contribution length also reveals some significant

disparities. Across all 5 BME-specific debates, each individual BME peer spoke an average of

216 words; each white peer spoke an average of 68 words. The opposite is true in the non-

BME debates, though the differences less stark. Individual white peers spoke on average 90

words, and ethnic minority peers 70 words. These findings therefore suggest that BME-specific

debates involve longer contributions, and that this is attributable to the length of BME peers’

PQs.

That BME peers speak more words than their white counterparts in BME-specific

debates also holds true for the individual debates. This is with one exception– the NHS Nursing

debate (the only one initiated by a white peer). In this one, the average contribution of ethnic

minority peers was almost half that of white peers. One assumption which can be drawn from

the longer nature of BME peers’ contributions in BME-specific debates is that they are

information dense, communicating ethnic minority interests in detail. An examination of the

type of contributions they make can shed some light on this.

Table 2: Summary of words spoken in both debate types, and race of speaker

BME peers (n=7) White peers (n=40)

Total words Average Total words (n) Average

BME-specific 1297 (6) 216 1163 (17) 68

Non-BME 281 (4) 70 2332 (26) 90

All debates 1578 (7) 225 3495 (40) 87

(Source: author. Note: bracketed number– number of BME/white peers who participated in debate category)

Contribution ‘Type’

As established so far, BME peers make more, and longer contributions in BME-specific

debates than their white counterparts. However, this in itself does not amount to a robust

indicator of substantive representation, and so the content of PQs must be considered

concurrently.

All contributions in the sample took the form of questions to the government. However,

there were clear differences between the amount of evidential contributions (those providing

empirical data or citing findings in reports and studies) BME peers made, compared to white

peers. Leiserson (1949: 570-71) suggests that the test of representation is not whether a leader

is elected, but the “expertness and ability” with which they further the objectives of those they

represent. Assuming that BME Lords carry out a representational role as regards ethnic

minorities, it would presumably manifest partly through the dissemination of expert

information and personal knowledge to the legislature relating to their concerns. It is this

“activity of representing as acting for others [italics added]” that constitutes substantive

representation (Pitkin, 1967: 114).

Figure 5 shows the racial breakdown of all evidential and anecdotal contributions

made. In the BME-specific debates, 8 out of 11 (73%) of evidential PQs came from ethnic

minority peers; and evidential PQs accounted for a fifth of all contributions they made. These

provided information and data about inequality and discrimination suffered by ethnic

minorities. In a third of these cases, an official report of some sort was cited (including

Childline, Institute of Education, and an NHS Audit). There were also references, without

evidence, of the way ethnic minority people ‘felt’ or were ‘treated’ (HL Deb 29 Jan 2014,

c1206; HL Deb 29 Feb 2016, c578), suggesting that this information came from the speakers’

own knowledge or experience. In essence, some peers appeared to be speaking for ethnic

minorities. 2 out of 3 anecdotal contributions in BME-specific debates also came from BME

peers– these were about racist discrimination suffered.

In the non-BME debates, there were 5 evidential PQs, only one of which was asked by

an ethnic minority peer; and 1 anecdotal PQ by a white peer. Interestingly, evidential

contributions only made up only around 10% of all contributions in non-BME debates– half

the proportion of that in BME debates. Furthermore, only around 8% of white peers’

contributions in all debates were evidential, whilst this number was around 30% for ethnic

minority speakers. This suggests that not only do BME-specific debates contain more evidence

and anecdotes, but that BME peers are almost three times more likely to give evidence relating

to ethnic minority issues than white peers. This is a clear illustration of ethnic minority Lords

using PQs as an instrument of substantive representation.

Figure 5: Racial breakdown of all evidential and anecdotal contributions in BME-specific and

non-BME debates

(Source: Hansard data; author’s analysis)

Conclusion

The substantive representation of ethnic minority issues by BME Lords is an entirely

disregarded area of research. The aim of this study was to shed some light on whether BME

Lords participate differently to white Lords when ethnic minority issues are raised in the

chamber; and if their participation exhibits characteristics of substantive representation. PQs

in the context of the upper chamber – where they are relatively unrestricted, and where

contributions go for depth, not breadth (Norton, 2013: 124) – are a good indicator of Lords’

‘representational orientation’. Three main conclusions can be drawn from this study. Firstly,

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when it comes to BME-specific debates, BME peers (particularly women) make up a

significantly higher proportion of speakers both compared to non-BME debates, and their

proportion of the House. Secondly, they make both more numerous, and considerably longer

contributions than white peers. And thirdly, BME peers are significantly more likely to provide

evidence and anecdotes relating to ethnic minority issues. This threefold phenomenon is

evidence of ethnic minority peers performing a substantively representative role.

However, these findings need further corroboration. Perceptions that the upper chamber

is an undemocratic, unrepresentative, ‘pale male’ institution persist. A longitudinal study of a

far larger scale is needed to validate the finding that ethnic minority interests do indeed receive

substantive representation through the agency of BME Lords. Such research will provide some

much-needed clarity on what remains a relatively enigmatic part of British representative

democracy.

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Appendix

Table A: Full debate titles and Hansard reference

Debate Title Full Reference

BME-

Specific

‘Apprenticeships: Ethnic Minorities’ HL Deb 18 June 2012, vol 737, cols 1538-40

‘Children: Racist and Islamophobic Bullying’ HL Deb 29 January 2014, vol 751, cols 1204-

06

‘NHS: Black and Minority Ethnic Nursing

Directors’

HL Deb 10 February 2014, vol 752, cols 406-

08

‘Education: Black British Students’ HL Deb 08 April 2014, vol 753

‘Health: Black and Minority Ethnic

Psychiatric Patients’

HL Deb 29 February 2016, vol 769, cols 578-

80

Non-

BME

‘Education: Vocational Education’ HL Deb 26 November 2012, vol 741, cols 3-

6

‘Schools: Bullying’ HL Deb 16 May 2013, vol 745, cols 521-23

‘National Health Service: Nursing Staff’ HL Deb 12 May 2014, vol 753, cols 1648-50

‘Education: Proficiency Levels’ HL Deb 03 December 2013, vol 750, cols

117-19

‘NHS: Mental Health Services’ HL Deb 14 March 2016, vol 769, cols 1575-

78