House of Lords – Second Stage of Reform

Since New Labour came to power in 1997, Tony Blair has pushed through massive changes to the House of Lords.  Changes which were never going to happen under a Conservative government, after all up until 1999 the vast majority of the House was Tory.

However, other than the hugely outdated ’hereditary peers’ who’ve been chopped down to just 92 members following the first stage of reform, the House of Lords was made up of extremely intelligent, worldly, experts in their field.  This ensured serious debate unlike the House of Commons where most of the time those present behave like animals.

So surely one thing that needs to stay is ‘intelligent debate?’  Not if we follow Jack Straw’s recommendation!

The Leader of the House of Commons has released the new White Paper which recommends fifty percent of peers should be elected, and the other fifty percent be made up of political appointees and those chosen by an independent commission.

Like most government structures this all sounds rather complicated to me.

Westminster

As it stands at the moment, the main options are the following:

i.  A fully nominated House of Lords – This would mean a broad representation of interests and specialisms but because members are nominated would be undemocratic.

ii.  A directly elected House of Lords – This would be democratic but how and when would members be elected.  Also could this challenge the supremacy of the Commons?

iii.  An indirectly elected (seconded) House of Lords – This could unite the UK after devolution as it would bring in expertise, but again could this challenge the supremecy of the Commons?

iv.  A part elected and part nominated (mixture) House of Lords – This would be partially democratic and ensure expertise but who appoints members?

My idea is this:

A directly elected House of Lords where the electorate vote from a selection of so-called ‘experts in their field.’  I’m talking about doctors, philosophers, scientists, lawyers (since the Law Lords will be gone by 2009), teachers, journalists etc.

From each of these professions, the body which represents them, in the case of doctors the BMA (British Medical Association) could put forward nominees.  This way you would have a broad cross section of knowledge covered and it’s entirely democratic.

Then where election is concerned, the electorate could vote regionally, (therefore keeping a smile on Tony’s face), perhaps at the same time county elections are taking place.