Cameron appoints 45 new Peers. Total now 826.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34072201
Its hard to disagree with the minority Parties who want the system scrapped and replaced by an elected body.
Its hard to disagree with the minority Parties who want the system scrapped and replaced by an elected body.
0
Comments
OK. Didn't notice it. This is an updated link, otherwise same topic.
Their problem is that they have too few distinguished enough people to get to be life peers on any merit. There seem to be no great UKIP or Green ex ministers, business leaders, charity chiefs, or local government or public sector chiefs.
The process is flawed because the numbers expand too much - but you would be hard pressed to argue that most of the people who got peerages this time didn't do enough to deserve them. They are the people with government, or local government, or policy making, or business experience who have the expertise you need in the lords and some who would be capable of acting as government ministers there.Its a pretty fair list from all 3 party leaders.
if you had a, pr elected , second chamber, it would just be a mirror of the commons without the expertise of people like William Hague or Menzies Campbell- and utterly pointless.
That would depend on how the candidates were selected wouldn't it? Hague, Campbell, Blunket etc. could be selected as candidates and the electorate would decide whether they had the expertise or not.
The problem at the moment is not about the having the likes of Hague, Campbell and Blunkett in the Lords but about those who have been rewarded with a Peerage for dubious reasons eg. the magnitude of their political donations, and once there they are there forever. Poor choices can't be rescinded because there's never an election.
You could have a list system. The parties could each select their 200-300 top candidates from the existing pool , and each be allowed a percentage of them. But that would come unstuck with UUKIP or the Greens who don't have enough people with the skills or experience to get in. You could then have a second list of 200 academic experts, military , scientists and business people to keep up the expertise . If there's, say, 129 business men, you just allow say 50 to sit at any time, and they poll or draw straws to decide ?
The basic problem though is whats its for - thats been the issue since 1911. Its why Benn, Powell and Foot all opposed Lord's reform, and why Clegg's ideas fell . The more democratic and legitimate the Lords is, the more it undermines the Commons. You can't have two chambers based on different ways of counting the same votes , doing different things , with similar powers. If you just want a revising chamber that can be ignored , but can throw up ideas, you have that now. You just need to cut the operational numbers back down to a sensible figure, by taking out the non working peers,rotaing some out for a parliament, and retiring some .
Its impossible to go further, without a consensus on what its for, and there hasn't been one of those since the last major reforms - over a hundred years ago. .
Is there a donations problem this time?
Most of them are recognisable experienced political or business figures.
The more suspect ones are those from the party machines, and the party policy advisors . But you could argue that the people who work on, and understand, policy, at least, are what you want in the Lords .
One nice touch was the BEMs awarded to the No 10 gardner and 2 catering assistants.
Why would the Lib Dems (surely a minority party) want the Lords abolished? They would lose a huge amount of influence.
I'm certainly in favour of more reform but I still think there is a role for nominated (or ex-officio) members in addition to an elected proportion but replacing the current Upper House with a chamber identical to the Commons would be a waste of time and money.
it would be nice to see more reform in that the number of Peers is limited to the number of MPs at least.
This would at least mean the current PM would have to think carefully about the few a year that would arise, rather than the present situation where it doesn't seem to matter how many there are.
Don't know about the other parties but giving Lib Dems 41k seems to be a fairly cheap way of getting a peerage.
I hope my gardener doesn't expect a British Empire Medal
So yet another round of elections which will attract a 30% turnout (if lucky) which will result, as usual, with a Labour-Tory duopoly as the electorate vote for "their party" rather than any particular merit of the indivudual? All for a position in a second house which is largely ceremonial?
Still the losng side can bleat on endlessly about the lack of democratic legitimacy of any such result.
House of Lords reform is an utterly pointless exercise. Either abolish the thing or leave it be.
To be honest, I don't know where to start in suggestions for HoL reform. There seems to be so much wrong with it. Patronage; cost; no age limit; no limit on numbers; almost nothing in the way of individual removal.
All the HoL seems to do is make some revisions to proposed legislation after hours of debate. I am sure the same work could be done by a differently set up, and more accountable, body of experts.
Yep, a whole host of problems
Who would appoint the experts?
If we want a better second body to scrutinise legislation then there is no easy answer to the question who?
That's the trouble...you can't start fiddling about with one strand of the constitution/legislature without knock on effects on others and the creation of further anomalies.
eg the current plan for EVEL might prevent MPs for Scottish Constituencies voting on legislation for England and Wales...it won't prevent Scottish (by birth, title, residence) Peers from doing so.
You could say that for many things, its a failing of evolutionary processes
Just look at the law - it boils down to not hurting people, not stealing from people and not being too offensive. Yet the legal system is massively complex
Perhaps the French were right.
And people like Lord Moat err I mean Douglas Hogg