Reforming the Lords

Centaur

I can see more downsides than benefits. More party politics and the sleaze that goes with it would not a good second chamber make. They don't need to be accountable, they need to be independant of the executive. Elections would necessarily remove that independance.

Marcus

The theoretical problems of an elected second chamber are also plain to see: *Loss of expertise *Significant increase in professional politicians *Potential deadlock with the Commons

Purple Scorpion

Agree with previous comments. Good for the political parties, but not good for legislative scrutiny and independence of mind. Yes, Mr Blogger, if you want a home for superannuated party hacks, do emphasise the benefits. And they would be...?

David Lindsay

A new and powerful second chamber, the Senate, should take over the existing powers of the House of Lords, and also exercise the same revising powers in relation to devolved bodies. The Senate should have an absolute veto over any Bill passed by the House of Commons (or any devolved body) without a vote, including any EU legislation passed by negative resolution of the House of Commons. And the Senate should have the power to require a referendum on any Bill already designated as constitutional for the purposes of the procedures of the House of Commons. Each of the ninety-nine areas having a Lord Lieutenant should elect six Senators (who would have to have been registered voters there throughout the previous five years), with each voter voting for one candidate by means of an X, and with the six highest-scoring candidates declared elected at the end. The whole country should elect a further six Crossbenchers by the same means. The Senate should have a fixed term of six years. And Senators should have the same remuneration and expenses as MPs. But that's a whole other story...

Nicholas

I can't imagine Jack Straw leading a charge anywhere. He strikes me more as the "intriguing in the chateau behind the lines" type. Nevertheless any enterprise to which his name is associated rings alarm bells. Poor old David has missed the point that this won't be about reform to improve democracy but shifting the goal posts so that Labour will have an advantage.

Personally I think they have meddled with and undermined our 1,000 year constitutional legacy too much in their miserable 1% occupation and should leave well alone. That I fear is like giving a monkey a banana and asking it not to eat.

Faceless Bureaucrat

David Lindsay [4.07] Wise words and a perfectly workable scenario - but you know as well as I do that what we will end up with is a glorified 'rubber stamp'. NuLab reform the nation's governing institutions for one reason only, to silence them. Farewell, my Lords...

David Lindsay

Nicholas, Labour couldn't possibly have a greater advantage than it has now, when it can simply create as many life peers as it likes. Just as it could have created as many hereditary peers as it liked under the old system. And, many moons ago in the days of Labour Governments of yore, it did exactly that. Just as Tory Governments did, in fact.

Name supplied

No no no, 400? We have *far* too many MPs as it is, and to throw another 400 elected politicians would be farcical. The USA gets by with less Senators and Congressmen combined than we have MPs.

David Lindsay's idea sounds good, but I believe there'd be too much confusion for the average voter to care for.

Marcus, while having professionals in the legislative process is a definate benefit, it has no place in a democratic society, and given their lack of a mandate, the professionals in the house often have little real influence over lawmaking. Delegating scrutiny of bills to panel's made up of experts (e.g. science bills to groups of scientists) is a much better way of having professional opinions, as there are no ambiguities to what powers they have, and where they come from.

Stephen Green

It is vital that if we are to have an elected second chamber that it is not based on geographical constituencies. If it were we would only get a mirror image of the House of Commons and an increase in the overwhening power of the established political party system. Senators should be elected by the members of the various groups to which we all belong e.g. unions,professional and business associations,religious groups etc. Thus would independance of mind and the availability of expertise be preserved. Each of us would, of course, only have one vote and those who were members of more tha one electing institution would have to choose in the name of which one we would cast our vote. The management of such a system would be regulated by the Supreme Court. In this way we would take a step in the direction of the Seperation of Power which is so lacking in our present constitution. The major loss of power would be suffered by the office of the Prime Minister, which in view of the abuses of power by that office over the last decade or so can't be a bad thing.

David Lindsay

Name supplied, voting for one candidate by means of an X is too complex for most people to understand?

Marcus

Name Supplied - we have dozens of elements in our democratic society that do not rely on popular votes to function - the most obvious of which is the judiciary. Before crying out about "democratic legitimacy", it's far more important to ask the questions, 1) does the current system work? 2) will the proposed alternative be better? It is clear that the current system works very well - with the exception of the system used to appoint members of the Lords (which does need reform). Electing the upper house will have the triple effects of enhancing the role of jobbing political hacks, removing a body of experts from the system, and causing constitutional carnage should the leader of the largest party in the Commons not have a majority in the Lords. (And a panel of experts is in no way a suitable alternative - who appoints the experts, how is a majority on the panel determined etc - once again, far too much in the hands of the whips)

Fergus Pickering

I suggest a House of Lords elected by lot from among the property owning classes who are over,say, forty-five.

Nick Kaplan

All the “theoretical benefits” of an elected House of Lords are illusory. The idea that they would be more accountable is both pointless and incorrect. The point of the Lords is not to be accountable to the public that is what the commons is for, they provide the democratic accountability and legitimacy as they are elected and through the parliament act they can assert this legitimacy. The role of the Lords if to review, revise and amend legislation, for this they need not be accountable, they need time and expertise which the present chamber has a lot of. The fact that they are unelected means that we can have cross-benchers and appointed experts meaning that legislation will be more deeply considered, unlike the elected commons where everyone votes purely on a party political basis. What’s more, unlike in the commons, the Lords need not just make ludicrous populist statements in order to win public support (hence the Punch and Judy politics of the commons), which means the lords can act as a good bulwark against the “tyranny of the Majority.” Your second claim, that an elected upper house would end the cash for honours problem, is also horribly mistaken; at best it would merely stop politicians being found out. This is because an elected House of Lords would be elected under a party list system, where parties determine the order of candidates on their own list and hence determine who gets elected. So instead of directly buying a seat in the Lords one could just make a loan with the condition that one is put at the top of the list which would result in winning a seat. The only difference between this and the previous scandal is that there would be no independent appointments commission to find anyone out, hence making the practice more easy rather than ending it. If Straw’s proposals were to go through there are a few potential (and equally bad) results. One potentiality is that the Lords has an entirely different party composition to the commons, with no independents/ crossbenchers/ experts, the result will be gridlock, which each house claiming it has democratic legitimacy and that its will should be law. The present system avoids this problem as the commons can just override the lords using the parliament act. A second alternative is that the Lords has the same composition as the commons and no scrutiny takes place (it effectively acts like a rubber stamp), laws pass without question in both houses to the detriment of the resulting legislation. There are a myriad of reasons why the Lords should be kept how it is, above are just a few, there is no point in simply asserting (as politicians seem intent on doing) that Democratic is a euphemism for good and anything undemocratic/ unelected is necessarily bad. What one needs to do is to consider the role of the Lords, which is to review, revise and amend legislation, then one will realise that the present house, in its unelected form, performs its role extremely well (far better than the commons manages its role) and then you will be able to see how banal and fanciful it is, simply to assert that a good House of Lords is an elected House of Lords.