Dear All
If you think back to 1997, Tony Blair defeats the
Conservatives and becomes Prime Minister; the song used by Labour was ‘Things
can only get better’. A raft of laws were brought onto the statute books, the
people were primed up to believe that things were about to change for the
better.
After getting in the people’s dream that a Tony Blair
Government would be better than a John Major Government took a bit of a knock,
things did get better but not for everyone. As part of the reform agenda, the
Blair crowd decided that the House of Lords was in need of change.
Over the years there was talk of various reforms including
having a totally elected second chamber, the idea wouldn’t have improved
democratic accountability because it was done out of badness, sheer pettiness by
comfortably off rich middle class people pretending to hate privilege.
The reform agenda has been running for some time, but the solutions
keep changing as time goes on, in contrast what reforms have you seen of the
House of Commons in comparison?
Not a lot.
Here is a link to House of Lords.
Here is a link to House of Commons reforms.
The big reform of note at present is the pan to reduce the
number of MPs from 650 to 600 which means in theory that an MP has a bigger
constituency to hear representations from the people regarding complaints. In
Glasgow, if that reform goes through then one of the 7 MPs stands to get the
chop. In this case, I suspect that the Glasgow Central seat will be abolished
and the other 6 seats absorb an extra 10,000 voters.
Anyway back to the House of Lords, the sad part of the House
of Lords that sometimes the Government of the day puts people into the Lords who
shouldn’t be there. Michelle Mone was
given a peerage; I disagree with that appointment and also of Shamed Labour
peer Baroness Uddin.
The only reform of the House of Lords which would gain
public support is the removal of bad peers.
Now, it seems that the UK Government has dropped plans to
curtail powers of the House of Lords because 'the world has changed'.
When David Cameron was PM, he instructed Lord Strathclyde to
look at curbing the powers of the second chamber, after peers voted to
block George Osborne's plan to cut tax credits in October.
He didn’t like the result of a democratic vote which is shameful,
the House of Lords for all its faults has many good peers who do valuable work bring
experience and a critical eye to the work of the UK Government who sometimes
get it spectacularly wrong as George Osborne done on tax credits.
Peers rightly attacked David Cameron's review and
the recommendation that hostile peers should be banned from overturning
legislation because it would make a mockery of the Parliament and damage its
standing in the country and further afield the World. The UK Parliament is
called the mother of all parliaments because we are supposed to be the embodiment
of democracy.
Tilting the balance of power make have provided the
government of the day with a quick fix but in the long run a House of Lords
unable to do its job properly serves no purpose, therefore the House of Lords
would in effective have been abolished by default and the peers would also
serve no purpose beyond a ceremonial role.
The new approach by Downing Street is to seek to
build a more constructive relationship with the Lords. This requires the
Government to raise its game not just in crafting legislation but also thought
processes behind it.
The World as Theresa May has said has changed Brexit is a
landmark point in British politics and she needs to attempt to get as many
people on board as Brexit sails through the Commons and House of Lords.
To me the big questions of the House of Lords will never be
anything else but who is allowed in, do they provide value to the institution
and are they acting in good faith in both their role and their stance on
legislation.
If the Commons and the Lords don’t allow Brexit to pass,
this will create a constitutional crisis which some people think would lead Theresa
May to seek a new mandate in a General election. It certainly wouldn’t be
anyone’s interest to travel down that route because the ‘anti’ House of Lords
people would gain a new platform to push not just for reform but for removal of
peers not directly but by attempting to subject them to having a mandate. I don’t
think the public have an appetite for House of Lords elections.
Theresa May probably thinks that kicking the reform issue
into the long grass is a good idea, it may turn out to be so if people go along
to get along, but if Brexit brings matters to ahead she will have to have a
Plan B to fall back on.
Finally, one idea for the House of Lords I would like to see
is that a third of the peers in the chamber by law must be independent of any
party in order not to have a House of Lords weighted down by party hacks who simply
vote along party lines.
And I believe this issue is in the best interest of the House
of Lords!
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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