Reforming UK House of Lords

[Zeppy]

Alot of British/Monarchy threads have inspired to create a thread.

What would you do the Reform the British House of Lords?

Eliminated, Strengthen or Status Quo?

[Yootopia]

Keep it how it is, as much as I hate Status Quo.

[North Suran]

Unicameral system, for me.

Bicameral parliamentary systems are too bureacratic and inefficient, IMHO.

[Kamsaki]

If by "Strengthen" you mean "Remove everyone who's only there by birthright or by financial transaction and replace them with established and experienced lawyers and representatives" then option 3 wins my vote.

[Nadkor]

Actually, I wrote a piece on reform of the House of Lords a while back (2007, I think), so I'll post a section of it here.

Anyway, it is not for the Commons that I advocate PR; the Lords should be a wholly-elected chamber using the Single Transferable Vote method, with the members sitting for eight years, and half being elected every four years to help ensure continuity. A new name would also be needed, but that is of little interest to me. In my view it is essential that a strong government is maintained, and as I see it the most effective way of achieving this is to leave the Commons more or less as it is; perhaps opposition parties may have more opportunity to propose Bills, but that would be the only change I would make.

However, having a propoortionally elected Lords would ensure that the government is unlikely to hold a majority in both houses simultaenously; indeed, it would be unlilely that any party would hold a majority in the Lords, which would mean that it would be exceedingly difficult for the governing party to pass laws that are contrary to the basic interests of the country or dangerous for the idea of civil liberty. Minority interests would recieve adequate representation, and the majority would be ensured of a fair position of influence. One thing which would be important, though, is that the Salisbury Convention must be respected by the elected Lords.

All this together would have the rather desirous effect of ensuring that the citizenry is well represented in Parliament, while maintaining the primacy of the Commons and the strength of executive that is necessary for the proper governing of this country.

Not totally sure I agree with it completely these days, but still...probably worth a read.

[Neesika]

Well I like the fact that you lot have a Supreme Court now instead of having the House of Lords as your highest authority. That's a nice change.

[Kobrania]

Well I like the fact that you lot have a Supreme Court now instead of having the House of Lords as your highest authority. That's a nice change.

It is run by the lords though.

[Nadkor]

Well I like the fact that you lot have a Supreme Court now instead of having the House of Lords as your highest authority. That's a nice change.

It is run by the lords though.

Run by the Lords?

[Genyria]

Status quo. There is a conservative part of me that loves the meritocratic system, but then again, the Lords as it is is not meritocratic - rather, plutocratic. Ergo, reform in the direction of making the peerage meritocratic once again!

[Genyria]

Well I like the fact that you lot have a Supreme Court now instead of having the House of Lords as your highest authority. That's a nice change.

It is run by the lords though.

Run by the Lords?

At the moment, all the Justices of the Supreme Court are members of the Lords, but it is intended that this will change at some point.

[Nadkor]

Well I like the fact that you lot have a Supreme Court now instead of having the House of Lords as your highest authority. That's a nice change.

It is run by the lords though.

Run by the Lords?

At the moment, all the Justices of the Supreme Court are members of the Lords, but it is intended that this will change at some point.

I am fully aware that they remain members of the House of Lords, but that by no stretch of the imagination makes the Supreme Court "run by the Lords".

The directors of a company may all be members of a golf club, but that in no way means the company is run by the golf club.

[Abdju]

The House of Lords needs to be reformed, because previous reforms have broken it. By giving power over to the Commons to determine peerages, the Lords has been made nothing more than a rubber stamp institution for the Commons. It is stuffed full of party retirees who are kept at heel by the Parliament Act, just in case.

As a first step, I'd like to see the power to create peers taken out of the Commons hands, and returned to Royal control. I'd like to see the Lords Spiritual reformed so that all major religions of the UK are reflected there, but with voting rights restricted on certain issues.Hereditary Peers should have their rights restored in full, and the number of Life Peers should be cut back.

One thing thing I'd like to see, appointed through the Monarch together with the Privy Council (excluding the PM, however) would be to create within the Lords a cabinet of specialists on key areas of expertise (regional diplomacy, constitutional affairs, health care, environment, energy, transport, trade etc.) who would hold voting power within the Lords and would able to guide the Lords in providing an expert eye when scrutinising legislation from the Commons, s well as it's it's own proposals (below).

I would also like to see it made possibly for all three branches of government (Monarch, Lords and Commons) to propose legislation, and that all legislations must be separately ratified by each branch (the Monarch ratifying acts independently, rather than symbolically or via Royal Prerogative, as now). Although I myself am an absolutist, so don't (in terms of personal ideals) accept the idea of an empowered Commons or Lords, I think in the UK such an idea isn't something you could just drop on the place without causing real headaches all round, and the idea of a more or less equal three way split with some real influence for the Monarch and a more equal Lords/Commons balance is better than the current puppet show. Besides, one thing both Lords and Commons can be relied on is to fight amongst themselves, and a bit of divide and conquer always works well

[Autonomous Cats]

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Honesty does have its high points I suppose.

[Abdju]

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Honesty does have its high points I suppose.

I can't be arsed to BS people... Maybe why electoral politics isn't for me....

[Tech-gnosis]

Get rid of it.

[Abdju]

Get rid of it.

Why? And to replace it with what?

[Blouman Empire]

I would opt for a bicameral legislature over that of unicameral, with an Upper House it does help to provide checks and balances on the government something which is essential in any liberal democracy.

[Grave_n_idle]

Alot of British/Monarchy threads have inspired to create a thread.

What would you do the Reform the British House of Lords?

Eliminated, Strengthen or Status Quo?

It could do with reform, but it's an advantage.

[Tech-gnosis]

Why? And to replace it with what?

Because it largely powerless and its bit of power makes the whole legislative process more time consuming and inefficient. With power it'd make the legislative process more inefficient. Replace it with nothing.

[Jordaxia]

In my opinion, the house of lords should be junked of hereditary peers, and be replaced with people chosen almost entirely at random. That is, there should be an amount of seats allocated for men, women, and down into various minority groups - but within those allocations, people should be chose at random, and serve for 4 years, before being replaced by another group of random people.

The whole point of the Lords is that you remove political motivation from the equation.

You also make it illegal for anybody to say if they're serving on the Lords, to prevent them engaging in political corruption.


There we go. That's my completely unworkable, incredibly flawed (but I'll ignore them) political reformation for the day. How's about some tea?

[Verdeguay]

Get rid of it. Think of all the money that would be saved. Besides, the Lords is pretty pointless as it is now. Get rid of it, dramatically reduce the size of the House of Commons, and replace FPTP with proportional representation or, at the very least, MMP.

[Jordaxia]

Get rid of it. Think of all the money that would be saved. Besides, the Lords is pretty pointless as it is now. Get rid of it, dramatically reduce the size of the House of Commons, and replace FPTP with proportional representation or, at the very least, MMP.

I'm with you. Get rid of it, yes, and reduce the size of the commons to one Strong AI, who is also the only candidate in every election.

Yes.

[Mad hatters in jeans]

I'd say they could keep their jobs as long as they dress up as mickey mouse characters everytime they go into the chamber, because let's face it they take the mickey out of democracy.
remove them, i mean it would make news of course at the moment i don't really care what happens to them, there's far more pressing concerns that should be addressed in politics that get sidelined whenever some 'political crisis' happens.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Replace it with workers councils, with the power to have any legislation struck down, or any politician killed, for anything they define as traitorship to the cause of the working class.

Then stick in a third house representing business groups, with the power to strike down any legislation, or kill any politician, for actions contrary to the maximisation of profit.

Run sessions of all three houses, at the same time, in a metal cage surrounded by ropes, with various weapons strewn about.

That's the kind of corporatism I can get behind.

[Goath]

The Lib Dem in me demands an elected upper house.