The events of this week were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world.
The events of this week were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world
In a parliamentary democracy, the idea of a second chamber to revise primary legislation and to take a longer view than the main chamber sounds good in theory. And indeed, in the UK we are served by some distinguished legislators who sit in the House of Lords.
The problem is that no matter how hard they work and how effective their interventions might be, none of it can mask the lunacy of the way the House of Lords is constituted.
We’ve seen it again this week on two fronts. Firstly, the prime minister appointed an additional four peers. So as not to upset the gender balance, he was careful to choose three men and a single woman – thus ensuring the 75:25 split in favour of men in the Lords was preserved. One of his appointments appears to have been made in response to the politics of the day – in this case, immigration issues.
So a lawmaker is ennobled to help with the ‘optics’ of current politics. It’s all high-principled stuff.
Next we saw one of the more quirky aspects of an institution with more than its fair share of quirks: an election for a hereditary peer. There are still 90 places in the Lords reserved for people who have as their qualification for a peerage the mere fact of their birth.
So a micro constituency supplies the only people who are actually elected to the second chamber. To be a candidate one must descend from the aristocracy. It would be impossible to make this stuff up.
Despite the heroic efforts of the political class to thwart reform, changes to the House of Lords are inevitable for two reasons.
Firstly, size. In its report The Super-Sized Second Chamber, the Electoral Reform Society pointed out that the House of Lords was second in size only to the People’s Republic of China, who on last checking had a slightly larger population than the UK With so many political appointments of life peers having been made, the number of people eligible to sit, vote and claim the £300 tax-free allowance per day is 849 (minus a small number on leave of absence).
Not only are there not enough seats or office space for this huge number of lawmakers, but as former Conservative constitution minister Mark Harper has noted: “If we have one more change of government it is going to have over 1000 members.”
The truth is it will nearly nudge that number anyway when the Dissolution appointments are made at the end of this Parliament. David Cameron’s first three years as PM saw him appoint four times the number of peers than Gordon Brown did in his three years in Downing Street. And pro-rata Mr Cameron has appointed significantly more than Tony Blair.
The second reason why reform cannot be avoided comes from the impact the Scottish independence referendum has had – and will continue to have – on politics. The Westminster club in its current form is no longer seen as holding any credibility for the new politics needed to re-engage citizens. We need a citizen-led Constitutional Convention to bring democracy back to life right across the UK.
All the parties (and we are now in an age of five- if not six-party politics) have signalled their support for such a move, with the exception so far of the Conservatives. And it is difficult to see how the House of Lords can be left out of that conversation.
Scotland showed us that where the issues are relevant and real and where every vote counts, citizens have a deep desire to be part of their democratic future. The events of this week relating to the House of Lords were yet another reminder of how far behind Westminster is in adapting to the new world.
Darren Hughes is deputy chief executive of the Electoral Reform Society. He was a New Zealand Labour MP and minister in Helen Clark’s government
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33 Responses to “We need to bring democracy back to life. Let’s start with the House of Lords”
Leon Wolfeson
So basically, the ERS is ignoring the important reforms and is trying to get an unpopular form of PR through.
Right.
(MMP polled far better where allowed as an option in AV referendum polling…)
littleoddsandpieces
The House of Lords is entirely undemocratic and was abolished by Cromwell by decree back in the 1600s. This was confirmed again by the late lamented Wedgwood Benn.
Scotland passes laws without the House of Lords, so why not the rest of the UK.
Starvation has risen 70 per cent since 2010, caused by welfare reform leaving those in work far more than the unemployed and / or disabled / sick and those denied state pension payout at 60 since 2013, with no food money.
The entirely ‘useless and dangerous’ (to quote Cromwell) House of Lords
uses up taxpayers money, which includes all those who now starve,
from the 75 per cent of tax from people to government coming from stealth taxes / VAT, thus giving the poorest the equivalent of a 90 per cent tax rate even though paying not one penny in income tax (only a quarter of taxes gathered).
Meanwhile, the starving pay for the rich to attend House of Lords at £300 a day, with a subsidised private restaurant, and costing millions to run.
Now the UK has to pay back over £2 billion by 1 December to the EU, when the UK refused to allow the EU to subsidise the food banks in the UK, that government deny the bulk of surplus food, throwing it either to landfill or burnt whilst still edible.
Find out more on my personal website:
http://www.anastasia-england.me.uk
swat
We could follow the example of the USA and have a Senate of 100, all elected.
And a State or Regional Govt for the 5 Regions of England plus NI Scotland and Wales.
AnthonyTuffin
MMP (aka AMS) isn’t a too bad a system if all you want is PR, and you don’t mind increasing the power of political parties and creating two classes of MPs or Councillors, but those who understand voting systems know that STV is considerably better.
STV decreases party power and increases voter power. STV maximizes voters’ choices and there is only one kind of MP or Councillor with STV.
Visit http://www.stvAction.org.uk if you would like to know more about STV.
Asteri
One way it could be reformed is by not appointing celebrities off b**l s**t reality TV shows to sit in it, like Alan Sugar and Karen Brady. Imagine if Donald Trump was just appointed to the US senate for life, this is the state of modern Britain.