Firstly, may I apologise for a prelims, themes and sources and (primarily) laziness induced absence. Luckily for the constitutional future of this country, I come back bearing a Big Idea. No, it’s not Scottish independence - that’s this week’s constitutional knot - or even the West Lothian question, but back to reform of the Lords. Blair’s embarrassing failure to complete this would surely feature prominently in all this ‘legacy’ coverage if people minded all that much, and the waters have been further muddied by the loans-for-peerages scandal. Even if it does not result in prosecutions, the allegations have only increased the need to create a functioning, useful body with a decisive break from the messy and possibly corrupt past.

My proposal is based on a number of assumptions about the Lords and democracy:

- The United Kingdom is a parliamentary democracy. The people should have the right to choose who makes decisions on their behalf in parliament - this should apply to the Lords. Above all, no one should govern for me because one relative gave Charles II a lift back to Dover and another was fond of a convenient lunch. The mandate by the Commons for an all-elected upper house was overwhelming.

- In terms of its legislative functions, the House of Lords is fundamentally an advisory body: legislation seldom originates there, and the provisions of the Parliament Acts severely restrict what the Lords can do. Its role is to advise and amend.

- People are increasingly disillusioned with party politics, press officers and factional in-fighting. Parties are unavoidable in the Commons, but if a fundamentally advisory body consists of obedient drones voting according to the three-line whip and never once rebelling, it’s not doing its job. Cross-benchers are an asset, all the members of the Lords should be independent of the party leadership in the Commons.

- This one is a product of talking to Matt: most politicians’ training and expertise is in how to get ahead in politics, how to make legislative bodies function and so on. These are not useless skills, but it can seem strange to have someone who has fought their way up from being a local councillor in charge of the NHS, for instance, which they know little about. John Reid has had nine jobs in ten years, he’s self-evidently not an expert in all these issues. Of course, dealing with this is part of the job of the Civil Service, but there’s no reason to perpetuate it in a reformed Lords.

So, working on those assumptions - with which I am sure many will disagree - here is my five-point plan to a useful House of Lords:

- Enforce the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 moving the House’s judicial functions to a Supreme Court.

- Remove the hereditary peers (an anachronistic embarrassment), the Lords Spiritual (who represent only the Church of England anyway, not even the Anglicans in the rest of the country) and the appointed peers in favour of all-elected Lords.

- Ban those standing for election in the Lords from running on party tickets. Instead, they will appeal to the public based on their individual expertise and ability to advise the party politicians.

- Use larger constituencies and the single transferable vote system.

- Keep the name the Lords and other aspects of ceremonial pomp that some would hate to lose - it doesn’t do any harm, and it’s not worth the argument.

Please do tell me what you think, I would like to hear it. My own main criticisms would be that it’s highly implausible that a government would so reduce its own power in Parliament, and that without constituency parties selecting candidates a terrifying nightmare is left open where my home county of Essex is represented by Rio Ferdinand and Lily Allen. But I have more faith in the British people than that.

Filed under: Uncategorized on May 11th, 2007