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The Lords

Airfix

Graduate Poster
Airfix
Joined
Aug 11, 2016
Messages
1,047
Should we keep the Lords or replace them with an elected senate ?
 
theprestige said:
Keep the Lords. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And even if it is broke, it's probably less broke than the fix would be.
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I think that's probably right.

The thought of hereditary peers (and Ian Botham) having a say in running the country is as abhorrent to me as any dictatorial regime, but they're a huge improvement on your Senate.

Could be that the mere fact of heredity and old boys' clubs ensure less partisanship and more pragmatism? Bizarre but real - bit like the head of state being the head of the church, resulting in far less religious interference in laws than in USA.
 
The way I see it, most democratic systems of government are about the same. You're the UKians, the House of Lords is gonna work just about as well as anything can work. Replacing it with some other variation on the theme won't really improve things, won't fix anything about the UKian system of government that's truly broken, and would probably just break something else anyway. Or break the same thing all over again.
 
Get rid.
It's ******** with special mention going to the ******* 'lords spiritual'.

ETA Being owed a favour by the government of the day (or a previous one), or gaining high rank in a minority cult should not, in any sane or reasonable society, lead to being gifted a position of political or legislative power (IMNSHO). That this is even up for question in the ******* 21st century beggars belief.

Then again we still have a monarchy, so it may just be that we are, as a nation, terminally bloody subservient.
 
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I used to think until about 2005 that we should ditch the Lords and have an elected second chamber - perhaps by PR, so the Commons could represent constituencies and the, say, Senate the national popular vote. (There are all sorts of reasons why MPs would fight that)

But then I worked on a Bill which obviously had to pass the Lords, and I got to work with individual Lords and Ladies, and the relevant committee. Not all of them were good, but some were very very good, with decent legal and scientific minds to get into the problems and suggest changes. I realised then that some of the Lords would be worth keeping for that legislative revision role.

So if wand waving was involved, I would get rid of the hereditary peers and the Lords Spiritual, and then have new appointments to the Lords approved by a panel similar to a very big jury. Parties would still recommend people, but they’d have to have a reason for being there other than ‘donated a lot of money to the party’, or ‘supported the government in a tricky vote’ - some sort of expertise which would help improve the laws the government made. There would also be popular nominations put forward for consideration. Part of the point of it would be not to have any ‘elected’ expectations, but there’s no reason why if enough people thought we needed an expert on broadcasting pretend reality shows that a panel shouldn’t consider if that had merit or not.

I wouldn’t rule out former MPs or even bishops or people whose 18x great grandfather lent Henry VIII some money to play cards per se, but they would have be put forward by a group and then make it past the panel. The panel would be charged with the revising chamber having a good balance of technical knowledge across fields legislated in, and filtering out unsuitable candidates like, say, Lordy McLordface.

New Lords would have a 10 year term, at the end of which they could either retire or ask to go before a panel again.

Realistically such a scheme wouldn’t result in drastic changes, but would address some of the more egregious aspects of the Lords, while keeping some of the things I saw were actually rather useful.

What have I got wrong?! Help me develop this...
 
the members of the Institut français are called Immortals.

we clearly need to upgrade the Lords to Gods, just to show those Frenchies who's boss.
 
One thing I hold against Tony Blair is he did half a job at amending the UK 'constitution' but never finished it and left things unfixed. He dismissed most of the hereditary Lords but failed to deal with the political packing of the Lords. I think that there is a virtue to the ability of the Lords to bring non-political but 'wise' people into the legislature. It is a way to bring minorities in.

Devolution has led to an unsatisfactory issue where there is no formal four nation forum. I think that there should be an extension of devolution to English regions and the Lords be used in a way that the senate is to represent the devolved nations, leaving the commons much more to be the UK government and not also functioning as the English government.

This would produce a formal and open way that the devolved nations can have a check on the UK government and have a voice on UK policy (ie those things that are reserved to the UK government as opposed to devolved governments). It would also be a formal way to have relationships between the devolved nations to agree policies on issues that are devolved but which one does not wish to cause internal barriers within the UK.
 
gypsyjackson said:
... they’d have to have a reason for being there other than ‘donated a lot of money to the party’, or ‘supported the government in a tricky vote’ - some sort of expertise which would help improve the laws the government made. There would also be popular nominations put forward for consideration. Part of the point of it would be not to have any ‘elected’ expectations, but there’s no reason why if enough people thought we needed an expert on broadcasting pretend reality shows that a panel shouldn’t consider if that had merit or not.

I wouldn’t rule out former MPs or even bishops or people whose 18x great grandfather lent Henry VIII some money to play cards per se, but they would have be put forward by a group and then make it past the panel. The panel would be charged with the revising chamber having a good balance of technical knowledge across fields legislated in, and filtering out unsuitable candidates like, say, Lordy McLordface.
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I have some problems with merit-based qualifications for candidacy, in a democracy.

You're basically proposing the creation of another branch or agency of government, that gets to decide by fiat who's qualified for office. Who's on the panel? How are they qualified? Who picked them? It ends up being watchmen all the way down. It's a democracy. Let the people decide who's qualified, and who isn't, by a free and fair vote.

Or that's the ideal, anyway. My realistic answer remains: leave it as-is. Besides, when you think about it, there already is a panel vetting potential Lords: the Prime Minister and the Monarch.
 
theprestige said:
I have some problems with merit-based qualifications for candidacy, in a democracy.

You're basically proposing the creation of another branch or agency of government, that gets to decide by fiat who's qualified for office. Who's on the panel? How are they qualified? Who picked them? It ends up being watchmen all the way down. It's a democracy. Let the people decide who's qualified, and who isn't, by a free and fair vote.

Or that's the ideal, anyway. My realistic answer remains: leave it as-is. Besides, when you think about it, there already is a panel vetting potential Lords: the Prime Minister and the Monarch.
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...and the argument appears to be that they aren’t very good at it, appointing cronies rather than people who can make the UK better.

Anyway, I think I covered your points by saying the panel would be like a very big jury. No qualifications, no picking.
 
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Scrap the Lords, change constituency boundaries hand the job to MPs, and have more MPs, but elected by PR rather than FPTP ?
 
The Lords is just a ceremonial house. It has no effective power. It can't even reject Commons' legislation.

I say keep it until such time as the UK ditches the Monarchy and decides to become a republic or reform it but only if you want it to have some legislative power.
 
psionl0 said:
The Lords is just a ceremonial house. It has no effective power. It can't even reject Commons' legislation.

I say keep it until such time as the UK ditches the Monarchy and decides to become a republic or reform it but only if you want it to have some legislative power.
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To a point the Lords can reject legislation, they have the most power when it's near to an election and there's no time to invoke the Parliaments act.

But they can also amend legislation.
 
Airfix said:
Should we keep the Lords or replace them with an elected senate ?
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theprestige said:
Keep the Lords. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. And even if it is broke, it's probably less broke than the fix would be.
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"If it ain't broke don't fix it."

This is an expression that gets my hackles up. It indicates a way of thinking that keeps us back from improvement. It's an attitude I have fought with for most of my working life. Dim wits that want to maintain things as they are, because they haven't the imagination to see a better way.
 
gypsyjackson said:
...and the argument appears to be that they aren’t very good at it, appointing cronies rather than people who can make the UK better.

Anyway, I think I covered your points by saying the panel would be like a very big jury. No qualifications, no picking.
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Ah, gotcha. So like a grand jury, or an electoral college. But then who vets the electors?

What prevents back-door lobbyists from building a cabal of electors who will rubber-stamp their candidates?
 
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