Reform

So it looks like the government is actually going to complete its promise of House of Lords reform. I was supportive of the first part of the reform – the removal of most of the hereditary peers – but was disappointed that the government’s plans then seemed to stall somewhat. I’ve no idea why it’s taken quite so long to complete the job they promised to do nearly ten years ago, but better late than never and if they can introduce legislation in this Parliament, then that’d be fantastic.

But what kind of second chamber do we want? The general consensus is that it should be largely elected and its role should be that of scrutinising legislation. I think that this is a good start. The current House of Lords isn’t directly elected at all and this needs to change. The leaked agenda of the cross-party group on the issue suggests that the government wants a half-elected, half-appointed chamber. This is not enough. I feel strongly that any body involved in legislating for the country needs to be predominately elected by the population. I think a minimum of 70% elected sounds fair. A total of 450 members is suggested, and allowing up to 30% - or 135 – of these to be appointed allows for: (a) a chamber largely elected (b) an unlikelihood of any political party having an absolutely majority in the chamber and (c) plenty of spaces for specialists to be appointed by the government. There are many who feel that the chamber should be entirely elected, and I have much sympathy with this idea, but I think that some spaces should be reserved for appointed members. On complicated issues it would be immensely useful to have experts in various fields – such as health and medicine, judicial issues, science and so forth – there to look over the legislation to ensure that it will be useful and effective. Their insight would be invaluable and would strengthen the effectiveness of legislation, ensuring that the laws produced were of a higher quality than they currently are. These appointed members would need to be approved by a cross-party group made up of members of the House of Commons. It cannot be the job of the government of the day to select the appointments, or else we run the risk of an unscrupulous government (if one should ever exist – ha ha) packing up the second chamber with cronies. But an independent commission could suggest people, and then these could be confirmed by an all-party group.

As for how those who are to be elected should be elected, well some method of proportional representation should be used. Either STV in multi-member constituencies (maybe larger regional constituencies such as those used for the European Parliament), or the open-list system should be used. So long as the basic principles of: (a) the elected members representing proportionally how people voted, and (b) the ability of electors to vote for people as well as parties are respected, I’m not all-too fussed.

So those are my thoughts on the second chamber: a largely-elected body elected using a proportional representation system, with a set number of members appointed as specialists in various fields. Whether the government will go ahead with something similar remains to be seen, but I think they will. They might need a little cajoling and nudging here and there, but I think that given that the Lib Dems are so keen on this issue – and quite rightly so – I have confidence that we’ll keep the government in check on this one.