House of Lords reform

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My posts tend to ramble (especially anything remotely political) so I'm going to try and keep this one short.

I like the House of Lords, I like the fact they are unelected and therefore (put simplistically) beyond the reach of the party whips. I believe they perform an invaluable job in keeping a check on Government legislation - they are highly qualified and experienced experts in their respective fields. They are not career politicians.

I do not support the Government's proposals for an elected upper house and I doubt I ever will. I do not believe that the job the Lords have done so well (e.g. amendments to the Identity Cards Bill, throwing out 42 days, etc...) can be achieved as effectively with elected politicians under the rule of the whip's office.

By all means modify: reduce the size of the house, change how they are appointed, look at the legitimacy of appointed Government ministers in the Lords. But don't replace it with an entirely partisan body full of politicians. I personally think this would do great damage to our legislative system that seems to work so well.

There, that wasn't too long was it?

Comments

Unknown said…
Completely agree. I firmly believe that part of an effective democracy has to be the inability of whips to control what legislators think. If the Lords did mad, unpredictable things I could understand wanting to get rid of them. But usually they're nothing other than a critical sanity check.
05 November, 2008 22:56
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