If the lords was elected ,the elected members would have to take the party whip ,if they voted agiasnt the gov’t they’d be deselelcted so they wouldnt’ do it, ,in that case laobur members would have voted for 42 days, Liberals would have voted for elelcted police chiefs

That is pretty much the exact line that Lord (Nigel) Lawson took on Newsnight last night too.

It looks like it is going to be one of the main arguments of those opposing reform. Along with the classic “there are more important things to worry about at the moment”.

@1

“If the lords was elected ,the elected members would have to take the party whip ”

Er, why? The rules surrounding whips etc could easily be changed for the second chamber.

On-topic – this is hilarious.

“I do not believe that elections are the only form of democracy.” – well, maybe not – but the Lords isn’t any form of democracy whatsoever.

I think she’s confusing “undemocratic” with “anti-democratic”. You could make the argument that the Lords is not anti-democratic because it helps to facilitate democracy (you could say this about other things too, like non-elected police chiefs). However, it blatantly is undemocratic because it’s not elected.

In all fairness, I think she tried to make a reasonable comment but phrased it poorly. Do we know whether her remarks were prepared or off-the-cuff?

Its very simple. If you’re acting “in the public interest”, as you yourself define it, then you have democratic legitimacy, irrespective of whether mere people have any say in what you’re doing.

Monarchs and dictators throughout the ages have understood this simple truth. So if you’re wondering what planet D’Souza’s living on, Sunny, its theirs.

“What planet do these people live on?”

Probably the same one as the Labour party establishment, in power with clear majority for three terms and still couldn’t implement proper reform of the second chamber.

I repeat: as a second chamber, the House of Lords has very weak powers – as compared, say, with the US Senate or the German Bundesrat. The Lords can’t debate finance bills and it can only delay other bills for a year unless it is a bill to extend the life of Parliament beyond 5 years.

The HoL is primarily a deliberating chamber where the views of the Cross-Benchers are especially valuable because of their professional expertise gained in careers and they often hold the balance of votes in debates.

The other particularly valuable function is scrutinising the stream of EU legislation for which the Commons has insufficient time or inclination.

Governments of all colours regularly use the Lords to move often uncontroversial amendments to legislation passing through Parliament as the result of second thoughts, late information or lobbying by affected interests.

What is the point of incurring all the social costs of elections to the Lords and losing most or all the expertise and balancing influence of the Cross-Benchers if the weak powers of the Lords are to stay unchanged?

I don’t think the ‘they will have to take the party whip or face de-selection’ line works when you’re talking about 15, or even 10, year terms.

Once elected Lords could basically do what they want – obviously that would be bad from a voters point of view (though a right to recall could partially address that) but from a party politics point of view it would pretty much allow Lords to act on their conscience.

Limiting all Lords to one term in the upper chamber would also minimise party control.

@7

That’s why they want to keep 20% as appointees – they would be appointed by an independent commission and provide a way to keep experts within the house.

That said, I’ve never seen the value of these so called “experts”. I’m sure Lord Robert Winston is an expert on biology but how does that qualify him to vote on laws about pensions, or defence, or civil liberties or anything else for that matter?

@ 8 Ciaran

I think this is spot on.

The LD’s should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for even entertaining these proposals. 12 bishops being given seats…..I ask you!

There may be an argument to be made for havinga certain number of appointed peers representing particular interest groups such as e.g. the medical profession, lawyers, trades unions, the elderly, disabled, charities etc. This partially answers the charge that the Lords shouldn’t challenge the supremacy of parliament by being directly elected. Such appointed peers could be elected by professional bodies, or appointed indirectly.

I think the right of recall and a limited term are good ideas, as is staggering the election so that a certain % are elected every 5 years or so.

With luck, the voters will see elections for the Lords as an opportunity to vote on less sectarian party lines, and take a risk on more independents.

I think the key thing to destroying the party whip would be to make a seat in the Lords for one term only and to rule a retiring Lord illegible to sit in the Commons for a set period after the end of their term.

In effect, make it unattractive to career politicians through not being a career and not being a stepping stone to the commons. Clearly right of recall would be needed as Lords would otherwise be unresponsive to their electorate – they have to be answerable. I would also suggest that elections are totally staggered, so that the Lords is constantly evolving.

Also, only give it reviewing powers, not the ability to establish new laws – so that the entire business of the house would be to examine legislation.

Can’t see the value of keeping the Bishops myself, but this is still an officially Christian country (not my favourite aspect of it…) so I can understand the logic here. Equally unsure about the idea of professional body appointees and the like though – vested interests are not a good thing, so the only ones I would advise are those whose vested interests are their electorate…

@ 11 Watchman

Oh don’t get me wrong, I’m instinctively in favour of an all elected Lords including some of the various caveats/additions mentioned above about it being a “reviewing only” chamber, members being subject to recall and with limited terms etc.

However, if that isn’t going to happen I can at least see the argument for having representatives from “sectional” interests, even given the danger that they have vested interests in their given area of expertise given that they are not likely to be able to swing a vote by sheer force of numbers.

In many cases, there might in fact be room for different sides of a particular issue; say for example representatives of the BMA but also of patients organisations, the RCN, unions etc. I don’t personally LIKE the idea of religious representation, but if you go down that path, lets have all the major groups represented, as well as humanist groups.

It’s not exactly rocket science to come up with a cadre of appointed peers who could provide genuine insight and knowledge in specific areas without skewing the membership profile of the chamber as a whole.

Like I’ve been saying for so, so long.

You’ll never true democracy when you’ve got a monarchy.

Why do we need the HoL? I would abolish it as part of the legislature, just leave the title as part of the honours system. For each bill passing through the commons, there should be an external scrutiny committee (made up of experts from outside parliament appointed just for that bill) whose job would be to go through the bill, line by line, and report to the commons – which would accept or reject any suggestions. The present commons procedures should also continue. There should be no power of delay. The HoL has one power remaining. The power to prevent the Commons from extending its life beyond five years. Any bill to abolish the Lords should include within it a binding requirement to hold a referendum on any proposal to extend parliament.

Galen10,

Who would counterbalance the unions in that scenario? Do we appoint bosses of big companies and senior civil servants?

Any organisation exists for the benefit of its members. Therefore expecting anyone from the Church of England down appointed purely because they represent an organisation to make decisions for the wider good is somewhat optimistic. The present system at least means Peers (I’d forgotten that word in my last post…) are indeed not indebted to an organisation any more than a party. Unfortunately they are also not indebted to the people in any way at present, but that key problem won’t be addressed by swapping Peers for those who have no obligations to the people, but have definite obligations to small (generally privileged – most professional organsiations are very middle class) groups. In effect you are recreating the medieval guild’s with their stranglehold over town government, despite the existence of ward aldermen alongside their representatives. In this case, the aldermen would be missing…

As you can see, I really don’t think this is a good idea – professional knowledge is brilliant in the right place. As a rule, I would assume that is the profession in question.

@ 15 Watchman

As I’ve said, I agree with most of your points and would prefer a purely elected chamber. However, since it is by no means sure that’s what we will get, there is merit in at least looking at the alternatives. A part appointed Lords does have some merit; many other countries have this without apparent problems.

Of course there will be vested interests, but any one individual appointee is hardly going to be able to sway the house as a whole, and would (if done properly) be cancelled out by others. In your example, trades union appointees would be set against those representing employers and business groups. C of E appointees would have to share their position (which of course they don’t have to do at present) with other faith representatives, and those representing atheists and humanists.

The role of professional expertise amongst appointees would be that it might not otherwise be readily available, except in the case of the happy accident of an expert in a field being elected of course.

The medieval guild comparison isn’t really valid, as the appointed section should be a relatively modest proportion of the total.

@14 merrymaker

” there should be an external scrutiny committee (made up of experts from outside parliament appointed just for that bill) ”

The problem with your proposal is that parliamant would be appointing it’s own scrutineers. Given the recent fiasco with expenses, how confident are you of their ability to police themselves…?

Whilst doing away with a second chamber altogether might have some merit, what is to avoid parliamentary supremacy becoming so untrammeled that it becomes a danger? A US style separation of poweres might not exactly fit our system, but I’d be very wary of handing so many of the reins of power over to parliament given its recent record.

“That said, I’ve never seen the value of these so called “experts”. I’m sure Lord Robert Winston is an expert on biology but how does that qualify him to vote on laws about pensions, or defence, or civil liberties or anything else for that matter?”

Exactly. Get the experts in on an “as and when needed” basis when forming the policy in the first place, and for further questioning during debate (as happens with the commons to a degree), they don’t need to sit in the house of lords to do that.

That said, I’ve never seen the value of these so called “experts”. I’m sure Lord Robert Winston is an expert on biology but how does that qualify him to vote on laws about pensions, or defence, or civil liberties or anything else for that matter?

What qualifies MPs to speak on such things?

ukliberty,

What qualifies MPs to speak on such things?

Nothing (patently so in some cases). But at least we (the people) elect them and get the chance to change our minds. Either the current system or any other appointed system fails to address that.

Galen 10 @16,

I just don’t see how these experts, with their own biases and obligations, would be any better than the appointed people we have now. It seems a pointless reform – if we must reform (and I would prefer it much to my surprise – I used to be opposed to the idea for some reason I can’t now recall) lets do so properly, not by replacing one bunch of unresponsive apointees with another.

But at least we (the people) elect them and get the chance to change our minds.

I will sleep easy tonight.

@21 Watchman

They would be better in the sense that they would have been appointed because they represent their particular body, perhaps even be “elected” by those bodies, and had not been appointed by crooked political machinations of the parties who do it at present.

There is at least some merit in the idea that they would be a better resource than chancing to luck that those appointed on another basis just happened to have the necessary experience/smarts.

As ukliberty points out above, the criticism levelled by other above applies just as much to MP’s. A partly appointed house also answers in part your criticism @ 20 above; the whole point of entertaining a partly appointed upper chamber is to ensure there is no conflict of legitimacy with parliament.

3 Mr S Pill, Govenments like their policies pushed through and When oppositions oppose governemnt policies they like to stop those policies becoming legislation,
Political parties spend lots of money getting their politicans elected, and the leader of a party wants to do the best job they can getting legislation through/stopped, they’re not going to be happy if someone they’ve spent moeny getting elected suddenly feels they have more loyalty toanother organsation outside their party that they vote agiasnt what their party wants and then that law gets blocked/ through.

say Kate hoey was in the lords and the vote on fox hunting was 50/50 and it was a labour party policy to abolish it rather than a free vote and Kate voted agasint it as she had more loyalty to the countyside alliance than our party and it was blocke dby one 1 vote, then we said what was teh point of spending our mney electing her if she voted agisnt what we were trying to do,

I’m not agianst having elections of sorts ,but at least half should be for non politicans like retired teachers/police chiefs Medcial proffesionals.

@ ukliberty

“I will sleep easy tonight.”

And your preferred solution is…?

Baroness D’Souza’s point, which I think is misrepresented by the OP, while perhaps not particularly well made, was that there is more to our ‘democracy’ than elections. We have a rather more complex system, and rightly so. We have an interplay of checks and balances, different kinds of scrutiny and so on, while (sort-of) recognising the primacy of the elected representatives.

It would have been nice if Sunny, Mark or the Independent had thought to include a link to her words so they could be seen in context. Here they are – you may disagree with her, but I think she makes some good points, although that is perhaps because I happen to agree with her first and last points:

It is widely accepted within this House that its major function is to revise and scrutinise legislation. Therefore, the issue has to be: what can be done to enhance this important function and make it more effective? The answer that this White Paper and draft Bill appear to offer is elections.
…
I have said little about genuine reforms that most of your Lordships agree would make for a more effective House. Many of these are set out in the Leader’s report on working practices, which will be debated in this Chamber next week. I just wish to make it abundantly clear here and now that there is ample room for reform on matters such as retirement, appointment procedures, increasing pre-legislative and post-legislative scrutiny, and cross-cutting Select Committees, but elections are the one thing that this House really does not need.

What I would like people to think about is what they want from Parliament and how best to achieve that (or the least worse way of achieving it). Wondering why clever people like Lord Winston are deemed competent to comment on areas outside their expertise is fine but calls into question pretty much all of our elected representatives. And it does make me smile when I see the same people clamouring for elected Lords (or Senators, or whatever) who are the very same people complaining about the current shower in government.

@26 ukliberty

“And it does make me smile when I see the same people clamouring for elected Lords (or Senators, or whatever) who are the very same people complaining about the current shower in government.”

Sounds a bit of a “tu quoque” argument to me. I’m probably one of those prone to complain about the shower in government… and indeed despair of our piss poor opposition, but that doesn’t mean that my view that a fully elected Lords would be better than the current, or indeed proposed alternative, system.

The sad fact that we are at present particularly ill served by the quality of our elected representatives, and therefore prone to bemoan the fact, doesn’t necessarily mean that Baroness D’Souza or you are correct.

Galen10, you’re right and it wasn’t my strongest point.

Let’s just say that ISTM D’Souza is correct to suggest an election is guarantee of competence.

@27 (edit)

oops..hit the button too soon.. the 2nd para should end:

“..is somehow weaker or less valid.”

I also made an error:

“Let’s just say that ISTM D’Souza is correct to suggest an election is guarantee of competence.”

ISTM D’Souza is correct to suggest an election is no guarantee of quality.