House Of Lords Reform Vote Dropped

[mosaix]

Apparently the opponents of the bill argued that there wasn't enough time to discuss this when other things were 'more important'.

Well blow me down I must have imagined all those MPs with second jobs: attending court as barristers, writing columns for newspapers, attending board meetings and writing their memoirs, not to mention starting internet companies.

If MPs actually did the job they were elected to do they might find that there was plenty of time to discuss important electoral reform.

Labour have, in particular, made themselves look stupid. They supported the reform but used the 'not enough time' excuse to embarrass the coalition and as a consequence we've probably lost the opportunity to get rid of this stupid anachronism.

[thaddeus6th]

Hehehe.

I must say I preferred the Lords pre-Blair. I loathe the specific reforms the Lib Dems have brought forward but, given the sadly low chance of reinstalling the hereditaries who were exiled, some sort of reform *is* needed. The present situation (new governments cramming the place with increasing numbers of cronies) is unsustainable.

Single 15 year terms and a party list system is not the way to do it, however.

[Dave]

I do wholeheartedly agree with your sentiments, however, we need a second chamber with some business and life experiences.

Originally Posted by mosaix

...all those MPs with second jobs: attending court as barristers, writing columns for newspapers, attending board meetings and writing their memoirs, not to mention starting internet companies.

Don't you think they actually sound like the technocrats that we need, as opposed to old men who haven't worked for 50 years and are an anachronism?

I'd say the worst problem is the career politicians who studied for a degree in politics, worked as a research assistant in Westminster, and then stood for parliament.

[mosaix]

Thing is, Thadd, you don't have to vote for a candidate on a party list if you don't choose to. I would imagine there'd be plenty of greens / independents standing. Problem is, right now you don't have a choice at all.

[mosaix]

Dave, I think the point about 'business and life experience' is well made and worthy of consideration. But, surely, democracy should be the overriding principle.

How about still being able to appoint advisers to the upper chamber who were allowed to speak, debate and give their opinion but only elected members were allowed to vote?

[I, Brian]

Before Tony Blair, I thought we should have a House of Lords filled with elected Senators.

When I saw how Tony Blair stage managed the political process when Labour dominated the House of Commons, I realised an elected House of Lords would become just another party political media charade.

What's been especially good is that, regardless of who is in government, the House of Lords has a habit of rejecting legislature it considers rushed or flawed in some other way. The arguments have actually been quite intelligent.

However, the House of Commons can over-rule the lords on any matter now and force it regardless (one of Blair's legislations?). This makes the whole idea of an elected House of Lords pretty irrelevant if the House of Commons can overrule it if a political party has enough personal interest to do so.

And yes, there are probably more important concerns here at the moment. Millionaire Nick Clegg's attempts to sound sympathetic to the "working man's cause" does come across as somewhat ... detached from reality.

[Ursa major]

Sorry, but if the powers-that-be want to call the UK a democracy, I want the chance to vote for those who make the laws I'm obliged to obey. And if there's a bicameral legislature, I want to have a vote in elections for each chamber.

I don't buy the nonsense that the current occupants (or the ones pre-Blair), are somehow above politics. Too many were ex-politicians for that. And I don't really see those occupants as being particularly independent, at least not when their own interests are threatened (interests that they don't share with me or the mass of the population).


However, I do agree that single, fifteen year terms, occupied by those near the top of their party's list don't constitute a good solution. It seems, to me, too much like what we have already, as no doubt the usual useless party hacks will be at the top of those lists. But at least we'll see the back of those who buy their way in, and the back of all those of hundreds of new peers who now arrive when power changes hands in the Commons. (We've only had one change of power since Blair changed the rules, in 2010, so this hasn't been seen as a big issue, but it really is, particularly if fixed, five-year terms are dropped after 2015.)

So for me, any move towards democracy is better than the status quo.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by I, Brian

What's been especially good is that, regardless of who is in government, the House of Lords has a habit of rejecting legislature it considers rushed or flawed in some other way. The arguments have actually been quite intelligent.

'quite intelligent' is subjective, but what if you thought it wasn't 'quite intelligent' - there wouldn't be a thing you could do about it, Brian.

The point about democracy is that the electorate can do something about it if it wants to or when it thinks the arguments aren't intelligent any more.

Edit: good post UM.

[thaddeus6th]

Brian, the Parliament Act (used by the Commons to ram things through the Lords that they didn't approve of) is actually from quite a few decades before Blair. However, his government used it more than any other, and maybe more than all previous governments combined.

The Lords question is one of theory against practicality. In theory, hereditary peers are indefensible, but in practice it works rather well. Unfortunately the place has been gutted of most of them and the lion's share is now made up of appointed placemen (happily crossbenchers are still fairly abundant, I think). I'm not sure the Lords is sustainable as is, but I am firmly against having them elected upon the particularly bonkers lines Clegg wants.

Ursa, the Lords does not originate legislation, it merely revises it. It's clearly inferior to the Commons and can be overridden by the elected chamber.

However, if reform were to occur then we'd need to address not only the electoral method (15 year terms are just insane), but also the function/standing and the salary. I think £60k is too low for the Commons. £100k with no expenses at all would be better. £45k for the Lords would not exactly attract top calibre people.

Also, if the Lords is mostly/entirely elected then the case for it being inferior is dramatically weakened which would significantly alter the balance of power in Parliament, but the reforms do not even raise that matter, let alone answer it.

[Ursa major]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

Ursa, the Lords does not originate legislation, it merely revises it. It's clearly inferior to the Commons and can be overridden by the elected chamber.

Actually, to quote Wiki:

Legislation, with the exception of money bills, may be introduced in either House.

Frankly, all this talk of the Commons overriding the Lords, and the Parliament Act, is missing the point, because it isn't always true.

Again, quoting Wiki:

The Act effectively removed the right of the Lords to veto money bills completely, and replaced a right of veto over other public bills with a maximum delay of two years.

The Parliament Act 1949 reduced the delay to one year.

So the House of Lords does have a veto during the last year before an election (i.e. from June 2014 for the current government).

However, there may be some dispute about that reduction with regards to changes to the House of Lords:

In Jackson v Attorney General, the validity of the Parliament Act 1949 was questioned because it used the 1911 Act. The challenge asserted foremost that the 1949 Act was delegated rather than primary legislation, and that the 1911 Act had delegated power to the Commons. If this were the case, then the Commons could not empower itself through the 1949 Act without direct permission from the Lords. Since it was passed under the 1911 Act, it had never received the required consent of the Lords. However, the 1949 Act was found to be legal. The 1911 Act, it was concluded, was not primarily about empowering the Commons, but rather to restrict the ability of the Lords to affect legislation. This ruling also means that efforts to abolish the House of Lords (a major constitutional change) using the Acts could be successful, although the issue was not directly addressed in the ruling.

So the cut off date for the reform of the House of Lords could be as early June 2013, because even if the House of Commons tries to override the House of Lords, the whole thing might end up in the courts (which will push the reform well and truly into the long grass).

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

In theory, hereditary peers are indefensible, but in practice it works rather well.

That's a subjective viewpoint, Thadd, and not shared by everybody. And what if they do something in the future that led you to think that it didn't work rather well?

Democracy is not just about voting in an administration but also about removing one when things go wrong. Right now we have an unelected presence in government that we can't do anything about. Of course, as UM has pointed out, influential and rich people can do things about it - they can buy themselves into the system. This is disgraceful and we should, as a nation, be thoroughly ashamed of it.

As for your point about 'balance of power in parliament' - that is only an issue because the upper house is unelected. When both houses are elected the balance of power is decided by the electorate and rightly so.

[Ursa major]

Just a thought: If the hereditary principle provides such a sterling bunch of legislators, one has to wonder why we bother to elect the House of Commons? (And why can one not simply buy a Common's seat? You can't be more sterling than that.... )

Originally Posted by mosaix

Democracy is not just about voting in an administration but also about removing one when things go wrong.

That's a very important point, one that is often overlooked, particularly when someone is described as being a democrat simply because they've been elected. There's little or no logic in that description.

A democrat isn't just somebody who has used an election as a means of gaining power; a democrat is someone who allows, and accepts the result of, a subsequent election that throws them out of power.

(Note that in well-founded democracies, where one can't cling on to one's elected post in the face of a failed election campaign, it isn't clear whether all our politicians are democrats, because they don't get the opportunity to ignore elections results.)

[thaddeus6th]

Mosaix, the Lords can be overridden by the Commons, if need be.

I think having some hereditary members of a revising chamber is fine. The Commons is, rightly, entirely elected pre-eminent.

[mosaix]

Originally Posted by thaddeus6th

I think having some hereditary members of a revising chamber is fine.

Subjective again, Thadd. Hardly democratic. Why should your opinion be more important than mine or UMs?

[I, Brian]

Originally Posted by mosaix

That's a subjective viewpoint, Thadd, and not shared by everybody.

Indeed, remember we're on a politics topic, so everyone's opinion is subjective.

Originally Posted by mosaix

Democracy is not just about voting in an administration but also about removing one when things go wrong. Right now we have an unelected presence in government that we can't do anything about.

Yes, but you can only have a chance to remove them after an arbitrary term. Over 100,000 people marching through London couldn't stop Tony Blair from stage-managing an invasion of Iraq under utterly false pretences.

In the end, he was dumped by his own party for Gordon Brown, somebody most of the electorate seemed to feel they didn't vote for.

Originally Posted by Ursa major

Just a thought: If the hereditary principle provides such a sterling bunch of legislators, one has to wonder why we bother to elect the House of Commons?

Well, because that's been the tradition for hundreds of years. Though admittedly only landowners used to be able to vote.

I don't think the argument is that the House of Lords would not benefit from some form of reform. The argument has always been what exact type of reform. And so far, no one agrees with that.

Not least, if there is an elected upper house, how can we stop it being overrun by idiotic partisan politics as the Commons frequently is; or being bought out by big business interests, as the Conservatives obviously have never have been.