Wednesday, February 14, 2007
House of Lords Reform
Once again the least important issue to the nation of Lords reform has come to the top of the Governments agenda. The Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw, has unveiled the Governments oh so original and courageous proposals this month. Gone is the old and out of date House of Lords that we have now and in its place we will have a shining new House that will be, wait for it, part elected.
How can this be any better then what we have now? The Government came to Lords reform with a pledge, and I quote from the 1997 Labour Manifesto, “to make the House of Lords more democratic and representative.” Now I ask you how does this plan go about doing that? What it really says is you can have elections to the upper house so long as we can still appoint our buddies who have paid us millions of pounds. If half an appointed Lords can still be democratic then what is wrong with the fully appointed chamber we have now? If large scale appointment, however, is undemocratic and unrepresentative then the only answer can be elections by some form not a half and half approach which this Government seems hell bent on.
If the Government really wanted to have a democratic second chamber it would push for a fully elected body with the power to delay and some times resist the lower house. This would remove the issue once and for all from the scandal of cash for honours that is surrounding the PM at the moment. But what Prime Minister, or back bench MP for that matter, wants to see a rival created in the western end of the building? The House of Commons has got too complacent in its position as the dominant chamber in Parliament and has no desire to see a young rival that can claim as good if not better democratic mandate created in the wake of the House of Lords. Senators would challenge the system in a way that has not been seen for almost a hundred years and no one in
This is a huge waste of time and looks set to be another Hunting Bill fiasco in which vast amounts of government time are spent on bringing in legislation that is not fit for purpose and makes Parliament a joke in the country. Those people you talk to in the street who care about Lords reform would place it low on their priorities. If the Government really want to reform something how about the NHS or the Police!
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