Jack Straw has submitted new proposals to reform the House of Lords. They will be no more acceptable than the last seven options, all of which were rejected on a free vote by MPs. The new proposals are...
* All 92 hereditaries to sit in the new chamber until they die off
* Current 605 life peers could choose to stay or leave with a generous redundancy package
* A smaller chamber of 540 Peers * 50% to be elected, 30% nominated by Party leaders and 20% by an independent commission
* Peers to be elected in batches of 90 over three elections every 5 years. Term limit of 15 years
I have seen no proposals about the electoral system under which these elections would take place. I find these proposals totally unacceptable as they reek of compromise.
My preferred option would look something like this:
* No hereditaries to sit in the new chamber (unless elected)
* A new House of Lords should consist of 450 Peers
* Four hundred of them would be elected and 50 appointed, but those appointed would only have speaking rights and not be allowed to vote
* All Peers (including hereditaries) to be eligible to stand for election
* No term limits
I can see no logical argument in the 21st century for the Chamber NOT to be fully elected. People raise the canard that the second chamber must not compete with the first. I have always found this a deeply flawed argument. If the duties of the second chamber are clearly laid out this could not happen. And if the House of Commons is so weak that it felt threatened it says more about the Members of the House of Commons or the government of the time than it does about the second chamber. Other dual cameral Parliaments do not experience this problem, so why should we?
I am a staunch defender of 'first past the post' for electing the House of Commons. The constituency link is vital for Members of Parliament. For Members of the House of Lords that link is not important - indeed it is arguable that it is important for Lords NOT to have direct constituency links. It is also important that the House of Lords should not reflect the make-up of the House of Commons so that a governing Party would have to continue to fight to get its legilsation through. It is in its role as a revising and scrutinising chamber that the House of Lords performs its most valuable function. All this points to some sort of proportional representation system for the second chamber. Not being an expert in the different variations I will leave it to others to suggest how it might work.
Frankly, all of this goes to show what a terrible thing it was for Labour to embark on Lords reform in the first place when they had no clue what the endgame was. I believe it is now almost impossible to gain a consensus on the way forward, which could spell deep trouble in the future. And for Straw to introduce an 'alternative vote' system for MPs to choose between different options goes against all the laws of parliamentary precedent. It shows what a weak position he is in.
My one plea is for the Conservative leadership to stick to its guns and maintain its support for a predominantly elected second chamber. It should ignore the pressure from Conservative Peers in the House of Lords who seem determined to maintain the status quo. The status quo is unsustainable.
74 comments:
No term limits? How would you replace Lords after death or resignation?
Might we also add that any appointed members should be chosen by an independent panel, and not be in the patronage of any other branch of government, where they have typically been used to pay off favours, free up safe seats for cronies, and generate campaign finance?
Has Tony Blair bought his own title yet, he'll have to get in quick!! Maybe its on buy now pay later deal?? Oh its all so confusing......
The problem with your plan is that it's all very well saying that the powers of the second chamber should be codified, but you haven't actually said what they should be. At present, in our very British way, we rub along OK most of the time. An elected House would use its powers up to the limit. Where should that limit be? Automatic power to delay any government Bill it doesn't like? Power to pass a motion of no confidence?
Personally I am a supporter of the Patrick Cormack "Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber". I just hope they don't fall into the trap of having this as a Parliamentary campaign only.
This really is intellectually lightweight stuff. It also shows no real grasp of systems elsewhere. (A range of bicameral systems exist, though none with an elected second chamber that adds value in the way the unelected House of Lords does in the UK.) It is perfectly defensible to argue that in a democracy one elected chamber is necessary and sufficient. A combination of first-past-the-post election for the first chamber and a complementary second chamber ensures that the system is saccountable: there is one body - the party in government - responsible for public policy. Electors thus know who to hold to account when things go wrong. If you have two elected chambers, you start to divide accountability and undermine the central argument (o accountability) made by the Conservative Party in favour of retaining the first-past-the-post system for electing the House of Commons.
Legitimacy derives from acceptance that people are the most appropriate to do the job expected of them. That is why we don't electe judges, even though the Law Lords probably have a greater say over legislation now than the House of Lords. It is not clear how, if you have a part-elected, part-appointed chamber, the claimed 'legitimacy' of elected members will emcompass the non-elected members.
It is not clear what benefits an elected second chamber would actualy bring to the table. Duplicating the Commons with full-time elected members will not obviously add value nor enhance political engagement in this country. Why will people bother to vote for members of the second chamber? And who will stand? And what value is there in having another electoral system (most likely a list system) that strengthens the hold of the parties?
Anybody can come up with their pet scheme for reform, but it is important to start with the fundamentals and bland assertions - uttered as if they are self-evidently true, when they are contestable - get us nowhere.
It's not a question of the second chamber not competing with the Commons. The Lords arguably should not mirror the lower house, and a system under which 80% of the members would be to a greater or lesser extent in hock to party patronage is hardly an improvement on what we have now. The Commons enjoys such limited respect because its business and members are so tightly controlled by the party machines. We should try to avoid an upper house in which party and public interest compete with each other unhealthily.
Listening to Breakfast TV this morning, I heard Billy Bragg, YES BILLY BRAG, espouse an idea for electing members to the second chamber, which if I understood it correctly, seemed very sensible.
At the General Election the votes for candidates other than the winner of a constituency would be pooled nationally and the seats portioned out in the House of Lords(?) accordingly. Thus every vote at the General election would have a value, either in the first chamber or the second and everyone would have had a say in the composition of Parliament. In addition smaller parties would get a national 'voice'.
The only bit to sort out is the selecting of individuals to take up the seats in the second chamber.
There is no real additional costs and I am sure it would increase turnout as people with special or single interests could put up enough candidates in constituencies to ensure getting a seat in the second chamber, thus getting a real return for the cost and effort of campaigning. It might even replace the secretive 'lobbying' currently so prevalent.
Just think members of the Taxpayers Alliance scrutinising legislation in the second chamber ( Oh the laws we wouldn't have).
David Boothroyd, I thought I had made clear that I think a new House of Lords should have the same role as the existing chamber, so its powers would broadly remain the same.
Anonymous at 11.16 - I never pretended to be an intellectual heavyweight! You make some very good points, not all of which I agree with, but they are thoughtprovoking. I do not agree that two elected chambers have to inevitably clash, but I do accept that the electoral system used is a real problem. We do not want another chamber of party hacks who fear the whip. Although I am not really in favour of term limits for parliamentarians, I suppose they would go some way to mitigating this point.
Yes, I like the 'Dale' version a lot. But the devil is in the detail.
The problem with PR is that choices are confined to party groupings - how on earth do you elect a crossbencher?
And the whole national electorate of about 40m can hardly be asked to pick 400 names from a list of potentially thousands.
Farmers and breeders, for example, may wish to return a peer with an in depth knowledge of rare breeds; boaters may want the chance to vote for a yottie peer.
And peers over the years have displayed an astonishingly competent grasp of many arcane and complex subjects; their range of specialist interests rather than their party affiliation is what gives the place its tremendous strength.
I think they should just 'pause' the whole reform process. There has been too much mucking about in the last 10 years.
The HoL, with all its foibles, has worked for hundreds of years. Let us allow the current system to 'bed in' for a few decades before embarking on some hasty, ill-considered changes.
I heard that they were planning on awarding places in house of Lords on the basis of loans to political parties - surely this would be unworkable?
Maybe - horror of horrors - have the HoL voted in only by people who do not earn their income from the state i.e. not on benefits, not employed by the state, not policemen, not army, not civil servants etc.
This will allow a HoL to revise policy voted in by those who PAY for the policy, not by those who might GAIN from the policy. Lords should not be stuffed with those pandering to the big-state, "salaried unemployed" lobby group, i.e. those who earn their rice-bowls from such things.
All MPs used to be voted in this way before 1908 IIRC.
I believe unless the Lords is fully elected it should have been left alone.No one should be apointed at all. If the Lords was fully elected it would now be a major thorn in the goverments side.
They will neve do this as it is like turkeys voting for Christmas
How about a pleb's chamber- at least 50% of the chamber is based on lay-people co-opted on the same basis as Jury Service - 2 year terms with full pay, all the way.
An entirely elected second chamber is obviously a must. The interesting question is what differentiates it from the Commons.
In the US the House is similar to the Commons in that it reflects members with constituenties on a population basis, so more populous regions have more representatives. The Senate by contrast aims to represent all States equally.
What should a reformed Lords represent? Should it seek to even out the population bias along the lines of the US Senate, be a forum for expertise from all areas of life (more of a technocratic body), etc.
The voting system would have to be PR. The landslides in the Commons caused by the first-past-the-post system cannot be replicated in the second chamber.
Once you get to the stage where the HoL is fully elected, the inevitable consequence is that the Head of State has to be elected also and the hereditary maonacrhy witth its current constitutional role aboloshed. While personally I would welcome this, I think the wider issue needs consideration - it is seldom articulated.
There are bicameral systems where the two chambers are not co-equal, but the important point is that if we move to an elected second chamber it will demand more powers than those held by the existing second chamber. In those circumstances, the existing relationship between the two Houses cannot be maintained. The whole basis for the Salisbury Convention and, indeed, the Parliament Acts will be destroyed. The Joint Committee on Conventions recognised this - and its report was noted, with approval, by both Houses.
Life-terms makes sense to me too, if linked to a constituency/area/region, which would have its by-election as and when the peer dies.
So there would be one big election at the beginning then only individuals ones following the death of a peer. This would certainly stop the government of the day from manipulating its make-up.
I'd like the election to be completely party-free, with candidates effectively standing as learned independents whatever their private personal allegiance.
For once I completely agree with you Iain.
Couldn't agree more Iain. The Government is making itself look stupider and stupider over this and it's an open goal for Cameron - if he can take it.
What about the Lords spiritual?
A fully elected senate is the only sensible solution. Can we please stop referring to these people by daft aristocratic titles like Viscount and Baroness?
That's just the problem Iain - no-one knows at the moment where the precise limit of the powers of the House of Lords is, because it is uncodified and done by convention. In order to codify it, it is first necessary to work out a whole load of hypothetical circumstances.
Just look at the complex issue of the Salisbury/Addison Convention, where the attempt to codify a fairly recent convention led to much wrangling and the inquiry having to be extended, and still didn't produce a consensus. In fact it recommended that the convention should not be codified.
I'm also a firm believer in first past the post elections for the very reason that Iain so clearly stated, i.e. that the constituency link is vital to make them answerable to their own district rather than adhering blindly to a party line. Politics tend to get in the way of independent clear thinking and methinks that the HoL should not be a second chamber of political opposites. How this would be achieved of course, is anyone's guess. Come to think of it, I reckon that the time is nigh for a whole parliament of independents representing constituency wards, instead of these clubs of toadies and back scratchers!
The comments of raedwlad and chad demonstrate how the whole question has not been thought through. (They have much in common with Jack Straw!) A House reflecting votes at an election would not differ much from the existing House. The core issue is who chooses and, if seats reflect voting for the Commons - that is, party voting - you are putting even more power in the hands of the parties. And if members are full-time there most certainly will be a cost. Electing members for a fixed term rather destroys the central claim of reformers that the second chamber will be more accountable. If members serve a single fixed-term, how will electors be able to hold them accountable? One gets no more accountability than at present; all one will probably get is party hacks.
Generally, I agree with your proposal, but with a couple of clarifications and modifications:
What do you mean by 'term limits' here? If you mean members of the second Chamber are voted in once for a15 year term, and then cannot stand again, I'll go for that: it would destroy the power of the party whip, and we only need one party-whip-run Chamber, thank you.
Another way to dimish the power of the whips would be secret ballots in the Chamber, but I can see other difficulties in that.
Why 400 elected members? One of the curses of British politics is that there are far too many members of both Chambers. Leaving the number of MPs to one side for the moment, perhaps 250 elected and voting, and 50 non-elected, non-voting members, would be more appropriate for the second Chamber.
Last, but not least, the name of the Chamber must be changed. 'House of Lords' cannot be taken seriously in the 21st Century. It has to be renamed 'Senate', and members called 'Senators'.
“I can see no logical argument in the 21st century for the Chamber NOT to be fully elected. People raise the canard that the second chamber must not compete with the first. I have always found this a deeply flawed argument.”
Couldn’t agree more. The state of the House of Commons is so lamentable that I would have thought a bit of competition was just what the doctor ordered.
“The constituency link is vital for Members of Parliament.”
Now I do wish I had a pound for every time I heard somebody say this, but I honestly don’t get it. I emailed my MP once. I received an immediate reply to the effect that “your views are very important to us and we will be responding to you as soon as possible.” What happened next? Nothing of course. It was David Howarth, Cambridge.
But so what? What was he supposed to do? Listen to what I had to say and then start an immediate campaign on my behalf, even if he didn’t believe in it himself? Or suppose a crucial vote is coming up in the Commons, so I go to lobby my MP. What are the chances that my view counts? That alongside all the other views he has to take into account, he will cast his vote favourably (in my opinion) and that his single vote will actually tip the balance and make all the difference to the outcome? The chances are virtually zero. So why not just admit that I had my say at the general election and leave it at that?
It really isn’t at all clear what an MP is actually for, which is why they end up busying themselves with a variety of constituency activities, in which arena they have no real executive authority. In this role, they are merely reminiscent of GP’s or Vicars who might find themselves acting as ad-hoc social workers in their local situation. But at least GP’s and Vicars have a proper job the rest of the time. Well, at least GP’s have a proper job anyway.
Fundamentally, the job of an MP is to sit on a long green settee, and then march through the designated lobby. They’re not even supposed to make up their own minds on the topic, never mind take into account the views of their constituents.
The much-heralded “constituency link” is pure baloney.
How about a Turnstile on the door of HOL and you pay to go and have your say ,it appears to be already in operation so it would make it legal.
We had a good fairly indepedant setup for a long while ,without heavy pressure and it worked ,why break something that workes
Why couldn't they have just left it alone in 1997?!
It might have been made up of unelected aristocrats but at least it did its job.
Winchester whisperer asks “what about the Lords Spiritual?”
I heard that they are to be reduced from 26 to 19. I think this is what they call “painfully slow progress.”
Isn't there an inherent contradiction in being a "stauch defender of first past the post" at the same time as "not being an expert in the different variations [of proportional representation]"?
You're saying you support the former but you don't understand how PR works - how can you reasonably say its the best option if you don't understand the alternatives. That's like saying a horse drawn cart is best form of transport because you don't understand lorries or trains or planes work.
Elected, unelected, we need to keep in mind that >80% of our laws are now imported from Brussels largely without parliamentary scrutiny.
Surely fixing that is infinitely more important.
I think we should return to the pre-1997 Lords. The only way for an upper house to be effective at tempering the lower is for it to not be cynically motivated by immediate political concerns (prompted by the need to get re-elected), nor merely a rubber stamp (caused by proportional representation of gen. election votes), but to have a continuous historical conscience actuating its every decision - to be comprised of people prepared from birth for the responsibility, who are secure enough to care more about country than party, and who, because they are part of a visible ancient continuity, will be most alert to faddish, short-term, reckless legislation (a New Labour speciality) and eager to shoot it necessarily down.
Abolish both chambers,
That'll learn 'm
Why do people get so upset by this?
An unelected second chamber is useful.
An elected one would be a pain.
Iain, The House of Lords currently does what it is supposed to do. I can't see the need for any reform at all in any way shape manner or form.
Personaly I also thought it was fine before 1997.
So it looks old, odd and anachronistic. Well so does Windsor Castle and the house of Commons. Any one want to buldoze them to be replaced by some large "modern" building?
OK Scott, how about instead of having the House consisting of the heirs of 600-odd landowners, we nominate instead 600 regulars at workingmens' clubs in mining districts of Yorkshire, whose descendents will sit in Parliament?
((Bracing myself for howls of derision))
How about part of the upper house being composed of people randomly selected from the electoral register? We already do this with juries - I know this is very different but the principle of trusting people to act sensibly when given responsibility is well established by this.
I don't think people would take kneejerk positions either. People may tell pollsters they hold such positions but when you give people serious responsibility I think they will rise to the occasion.
Obviously sorting out term limits, how to protect peoples jobs etc would be complicated, but it would definitely be representative and non-partisan, and non-sleazy/crony too!
Cheers,
Pete
Paul Linford writes... "Couldn't agree more Iain. The Government is making itself look stupider and stupider over this and it's an open goal for Cameron - if he can take it."
Or if he wants to. Blair made it plain in PMQ's that these proposals had come about after the Leader of the House had sought cross party consensus. I find it extremely unlikely in that case to believe that Cameron's clowns are not already broadly in agreement. So, Paul... who will look stupid?
Why is the "constituency link is vital for Members of Parliament" when three line whips undermine MPs being able to vote for the benefit of their constituents and are forced to vote along party lines instead?
When so much UK legislation comes from Europe these days anyway, is a second chamber even necessary? I genuinely fear any weakening of the House of Lords to hold this Government to account, the Conservative Party in the commons seem unable to do it!
Well, the answer is obvious Bob. If they are all collectively up to their necks in this dog's breakfast, they will all look stupid, including Cameron.
Ultimately though - and I am sure you as a Labour man would agree with this - we have to set the bar higher for the Labour Party in this regard than for the Tories. The Tories are historically the party of privilege and defending the status quo. We really expect no more from them than to vote for hereditary peers to continue occupying seats in the legislature until they are all dead. Labour are, or are supposed to be, the party of "the many, not the few."
For a Labour Government (as Kinnock might have said) to spend 10 years in office and still fail to bring in a democratically-elected Second Chamber serves only to illustrate what a pathetic excuse for democratic socialism they have become.
This is rather like standing in a bar discussing the England cricket team. Everyone is the ultimate pundit and everyone has the perfect team. If only those ignorant selectors would listen, eh?
In my view the best system would be to have one chamber where everybody was elected directly by the largest number of votes in their local area.
A second revising chamber should be random - filled from people from all walks of life with lots of experience to bring to the job. To save on party lists, ambitions and pushing for promotion, paying to get a seat etc you could let the eldest child succeed their parent. It would be a privilege to serve, and they might even do it without a salary out of a sense of duty.
Damn.
Iain, I'm afraid we will have to disagree on several of your comments but one thing you said that I really agreed with was the stupidity of setting out on a course without any idea of the destination.
I would go further and say that the system was odd, antiquated, unique, never to be invented again or repeated anywhere else but it worked
If it wasn't broken...why on earth did they start out on this exercise?
Ah - same reason as FoxHunting. Blatant class hatred: nothing more than a bone to throw to the Old Labour core vote.
Laurence Boyce and others ref: the Lords Spiritual I would offer the the thoughts of Trophonius - "those whom the gods love die young". That's why bishops tend to be old.
Throughout the whole debate concerning Lords reform very little has been said about the purpose of the upper house. To my mind it serves two vital functions:
The first is to act as an independent scrutineer of the executive's actions. this is especially important when the government enjoys a large majority in the commons.
The second function is to act as a handbrake of common sense on the more populist idiocies to which career politicians sometimes fall prey thanks to their ever preent fear of not being re-elected.
The problem with a democratically elected upper chamber is that its members would be as prone to the vices of MP's vis a vis re-election/populism and patronage.
Patronage could be eliminated (at least to a great extent) by preventing candidates for the Lords from ever having held or holding in future elected or appointed positions in government. This can be further strengthened by there being no party whips in the upper house and making all votes secret.
To my mind the only way to prevent idiotic populism taking over the deliberations of the upper house there can be only two courses of action. The first is to have an enforced "cooling off period" between the approval of a bill by the commons and its reading in the Lords. 12 months should be sufficient to allow any public furore to die down. The second step is to remove any worries of the next election from members minds by limiting their tenure to a single, long term. 15 years may be too long, but something along those lines sounds good to me.
As to composition? Let's say 401 members (you need an odd number). 36 hereditary peers elected by the hereditaries themselves. 35 peers who hold their seats due to their jobs (judges, senior clerics etc) and finally 330 peers elected for a single 12 year term in batches of 110.
As to the manner of the election I would propose a limited franchise based on the amount of tax paid by the elector. But this may not be ideal and to be honest any democratic system would probably work.
Of course with the upper house being democratic the Parliament Act would need to be abolished and the Lords' power to reject a bill outright would need to be restored.
ps As noted by someone else some place else (Guido's blog?):
It's all very odd that HoL reform is back in the limelight after so long in the doldrums.
Of course only a really nasty cynic would make the assertion that it's only after the chance of any more bung has been eliminated that the Great Leader proposes that his reform project be followed to completion.
Genetic lottery is how we select out Head of State, so why not continue doing so for at least part of the House of Lords, as we do now?
As long as all they can do is inform the Commons of their folly, but not prevent it, I don't see the problem. We need to know where the responsibility lies for government failure.
We do not want to elect from a shabby party list of B-grade hacks.
This drive for a *new*, *shiny* House of Lords is all a bit Tony if you ask me. If it mostly works, leave it.
Jack Straw now where have I heard that name before. Hmmnn. Thorpe. Fiona Jones. Nastier than he looks and a real sleazebag.
All seats should be allocated by way of National Lottery. Therafter tradeable like licence plates.
May I propose the Australian Senate as a model?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Senate
Sure it's for a federal system (which the UK seems to be moving towards anyway) but it works and has real power. It also does a good job of not merely reflecting the make-up of the House of Representatives.
New Zealand doesn't have a senate and Canada's is powerless because it's un-elected.
One aspect that doesn't seem to have attracted much (?any) attention on this thread is Jack Straw's proposal to present several options to MPs, which they will then vote on using an Alternative Vote procedure with ballot papers. They will thus, in effect, be forced to choose one of the options presented (which differ in the proportion of peers to be elected) and will be unable to reject the lot.
I'm not an expert in HoC procedure but, as far as I'm aware, this will be the first time that use of the "Aye" and the "No" lobbies, to vote for or against a specific proposition, has been abandoned. I regard it as an unwelcome development and I would have thought that there would be some procedural rule that would first need to be changed in order to allow the AV mechanism to be used.
Can anyone throw any light on this?
Brilliant idea, more politicians, just what we need.
Let's make sure they're all on a party whip, as well, otherwise there's be the off chance of one of them accidentally doing something constructive or useful and that would never do.
I think we should have something like a tri-cameral legislature.
Hayek's grandad is a good example of the lack of knowledge that exists about Parliament. (Hayek would have done his research thoroughly!) The House of Commons has become increasingly a House of career politicians (see Peter Riddell's book 'Honest Opportunism'); there is nothing wrong in this, it is a natural consequence of modern political forces. It does mean, though, that MPs' skills tend to be political. The Lords adds value by having members drawn from a wide range of backgrounds: a large membership enables it usually to draw on experts on whatever topic comes up. (The knowledge of many peers, contrary to what obne post says, is current.) This provides an informed perspective on legislation. A randomly-chosen House could not provide that, neither could an elected House.
I don't want an elected second chamber. I don't want any more politicians interfering in people's lives.
The hereditaries were not compulsive interferers. They were not compulsive legislators. Most of the time they didn't even turn up, except for debates in which they had some special expertise (unlike MPs, most of them were heads of enterprises outside Parliament), or they ran their estates) or a special interest. Being in the House of Lords was not a career to them.
The instinct of the hereditaries is to conserve. Certainly they do not have the instinct for destruction that Labour has.
I would like us to close this Blairesque (P'lice Be upon Him) adventure and bring back the hereditaries. It worked. We had a unique jewel in our legislative process. We can retrieve it, and we should.
I'd prefer to the seats in the Lords being divided equally between hereditary peers, life peers and elected peers, to maintain a sense of tradition, professionalism, and a strong democratic element.
However, since the majority of the upper house will now be elected, will that mean a strengthening of the powers of the Lords? What's the point in a weak second chamber?
A proportionaly elected Lords would quickly be seen to be more representative of the electorate than the Commons.
Not a criticism merely an observation
The question is do the MPs want a useful Lords which will compete with them or a useless one which won't. Or is their best option to give the appearance of activity without any - like the last 10 years.
You are absolutely right Mr. Dale. I really hope you get the safe seat you are up for....
I would also shut down the tinpot "life peerages" system. It's ridiculous. And presents too many opportunities for corruption and sleaze if you have a prime minister so inclined.
Let everyone - and under Blair (P'lice Be upon Him) there are hundreds of them - who has a pretend lordship, keep his piece gimcrack title, but do not create any more.
Return the House of Lords to the hereditaries, who performed their job well - and not too often. Few of them had an instinct to interfere or micromanage their fellow citizens.
Let's get back to basics.
The Crown offers a lordship. If the offer is accepted, then any other subject may challenge the lord to a Fight for it.
The Fight must be gazetted, in a public arena open freely to all interested spectators, and on Sundays.
The Fight should be to the death, which would be both the most interesting, and would deter an excess of either wannabes or challengers; spoil sports may insist on death or concession.
The lordship to be held until death or concession, by the victor of any Challenge.
Any current lord may arrange their own succession.
Challenges may be proffered only on nomination or succession.
Only Law Lords to be there by appointment. The Spiritual Lords might be expected to put up a particularly fine Fight in the arena.
It would seem to me that the HoL is the last grasp of democracy in this country. With the way that politicians all do what they are told by their whips, we need a way to make sure that sense has a chance to talk.
A Life peer has nothing to win from sticking to the party line. This is how you ensure that short term political gain doesn't get the upper hand in fashionable debates.
Until we have a political system where politicians are totally accountable to their local constituency, and to hell with the party, you will have more and more apathy with politics in this country.
Start to elect the second house, and within 10 years, the place will be full of career politicians and democracy will be the loser.
The traditional and historic argument for the primacy of the Commons over the Lords was based precisely on the fact that the Commons were elected, and the Lords were not. To the extent that the Lords become more elected, representative and accountable, to precisely the same extent the argument for Commons supremacy falls.
There may be many arguments for and against an elected second chamber (personally I agree with Iain that it should be totally elected). But let us hear no more of the primacy-of-the-commons argument in this connection. It is simply illogical (one might even say arse about face).
I am firmly of the opinion that they reformed the wrong house. It's the COMMONS that's a disgrace. Mind you, that's partly because Mad Tony has treated it with such utter contempt.
1. Bring back all the hereditaries to the House of Lords.
2. Abolish life peerages, re-instate hereditary peerages given only by the Monarch.
3. Then abolish the House of Commons.
I don't understand why some Conservatives are so keen on wrecking the one bit of our system that still works decently. It's easy to say it's 'unsustainable' - it seems to me our institutions would be considerably more stable if we stoppped constantly tinkering with them.
The point about electing members is that the House of 'whatever God awful name they're going to come up with' will feel more empowered. There is nothing currently preventing the Lords from delaying virtually all government legislation for 2 years but they very rarely block things. When you elect the Lords you open up a Pandora's box - just as a Conservative government may be coming back in. If you want the Commons to have clear primacy (and there are arguments against this) it's self-defeating to want an elected second chamber.
I agree that there should be an entirely elected upper house, but it needs some in-built quirkiness, so I propose:
1. National first past the post. All candidates on every ballot paper. Elections take place only on the first Thursday of every may. Seats vacated by death or resignation remain vacant until the following May. Cndidates might get 20 million votes or they might get none. First x where x is the number of seats up for election win a seat. If there is a tie, then seat is decided by drawing of lots.
2. A prime number of members - somewhere between 109 or 157 would be about right.
3. Term limits, but limits increase with tenure according to a Fibonacci sequence starting at the third term: 2, 3, 5, 8, 13 etc. years. If attendance in any calendar year falls below a minimum threshold the member loses the benefit of longer terms and is up for re-election after two years.
4. No heriditary seats, but as a hat-tip to the hereditary principle, any member who lasts for more than 20 years and who retires as a sitting member may nominate a successor, who will be required to stand again within 2 years.
5. Election expenses would be capped at the cost of a new suit and a new pair of shoes.
The principle of election is right, but the reality is that an elected house with 15 year terms will see the election of a bunch of party hacks who are selected according to party lists and who have in all likelihood no qualification for the job in hand.
I myself would prefer to have no appointments as such, but a system which allowed members of the upper house to hold their seats ex officio eg lords spiritual, law lords, retired heads of armed services, retired cabinet ministers, heads of professional bodies, heads of trades unions etc. These people would be members because they had achieved in their own fields and would not be in hock to any current PM.
There should also be scope for people to be appointed by a commission with a majority of crossbenchers. These people could be nominated by anyone-from "people's peers" to political nominations and would be appointed on the basis of their potential to contribute to the knowledge and diversity of the house
For the elected portion I can't do better than to agree with Niall Ferguson in the one of the papers this weekend who proposed 2 members for each of the pre 1974 counties of the United Kingdom
How about only barbers and black cab drivers being allowed to stand?
I thought I just heard Nick robinson say thet they are only planning to introduce these reforms "by 2050". Are they mad? or did I mishear
I think that only people who've held a proper real world job for at least 5 years should be eligible for the upper house.
And no oxbridge graduates either.
What's the point in having 2 of the best Universities in the world if ou are going to ban their graduates from sitting in the legislature?
Mens: There's plenty of them in the commons. We don't need more.
eg: Blair.
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