House Of Lords Reform?????

The UK Cabinet met today to discuss plans for reform of the House of Lords. The current plan is thought to be for a half elected and half government appointed chamber. This means that government will have control over half the seats in the Lords. In view of the Cash for Honours scandal at the moment in which parties promised honours in exchange for loans and donations to party funds, one wonders whether any of the parties can be trusted to have the integrity to appoint members of the upper chamber on merit.

People think that a wholly elected Lords will be better and bring more democracy to the people, that is debatable. It would bring the maelstrom of party politics into the Lords in a way that it has not been before. The Joy of listening to the House of Lords in debate is that things are debated properly without the yahboo political point scoring of the Commons. It will also allow the government of the day far too much influence in the Lords. These actions will reduce The House of Lords to a lacklustre second chamber, a mere rubber stamp for the actions of the government. As happens in some other countries.

In the last General Election (2001) the turnout to vote was less than 60%, meaning that over one third of those eligible to vote didn't bother and the labour Government won on the votes of 24% of the total electorate. In local and European elections turnout is even lower. When surveys are conducted voters say that they feel party politics have nothing to offer them and they are disenchanted with polititians of all parties. Are the electorate like to turn out for elections for The House of Lords?

In The Lords there are the cross-benchers, those peers who are independant of any party what would happen to them in a wholly elected House of Lords? In the last 20 years there has been one independant member of the House of Commons I would suggest that tells you that there would be no crossbenchers in the Lords.

In conclusion; neither option does what the Lords does now, that is keeping some check on the government of the day, causing it to think again when it tries to put through ill-considered or badly drafted legislation. As I explained in an earlier post "It Wasn't Broke Mr Blair", the Lords fulfils many important and necessary functions in the British Constitution and helps to protect the rights and fredom of the people