Bring back the Hereditary Peers?

Members…

‘…must never accept any financial inducement as an incentive or reward for exercising parliamentary influence.’
‘…must not vote on any bill or motion , or ask any question in the House or Committee, or promote any matter, in return for payment.’

Yet following a recent Sunday Times sting it’s alleged that four Labour Lords have been breaking the rules, getting paid large sums of money, for, it’s suggested, doing just that.  Now of course it’s down to grammar, with lawyers analysing exactly what was said to undercover reporters and explaining to you and I what was meant.

Westminster

Ever since Tony Blair’s ‘New Labour’ came to power in 1997 making radical changes to the House of Lords, then leaving it in a state of limbo it was only a matter of time before something of this magnitude happened.  Amusing that this story was broken by the same paper which exposed the ‘Cash for Questions’ scandal fifteen years ago, although these latest findings are a seismic shift up the Richter scale.

Indeed, it seems many Parlimentarians are tabling amendments for which they are set to benefit – yet they haven’t done anything wrong if their ‘interest’ has been declared.  This, following the joke that is MP’s expenses.

Now, an investigation is underway which MPs from all sides hope will lead to stricter rules and greater transparency of the second chamber, therefore mirroring the outcome of the ‘Cash for Questions’ inquiry.

But why does it always take a scandal before anything happens?

The ‘House of Lords’ has lain fallow since 1999.   Another of Blair’s legacies.  Enter right-hand man Jack Straw.   The Justice Secretary witters on about ‘…the strength of our democracy being fundamental to our strength as a nation.’ This from one of the mechanics of New Labour pushing for the centralisation of power.   Not exactly democratic.

Of particular amusement have been the well publicised, fair comments from former hereditary peers culled in 1999 to make way for a more democratic system.

Now you may be against what Hereditary Peers stand for but over the centuries they’ve sat in the second chamber how often did a situation like this arise?

And what about the accused?  Are they ‘hereditary peers’ or Blair ‘appointees’?

So now back in the spotlight is the push for a fully or at least eighty-percent fully elected second chamber following a free vote in the Commons back in 2007.  Needless to say the Lords weren’t keen and now Baroness Royall, Labour leader of the Lords has her excuse to make radical changes.

The media machine backs this theory suggesting that anything else in a 21st century democracy won’t fit. It wants to do away with the title ‘House of Lords’and rename the second chamber the Senate. It also wants to give the House of Lords a clearly defined constitutional role as revising chamber for the Commons, but isn’t that exactly what it already does?

Are they suggesting a two-tier structure of British government where the Commons has an unwritten constitution while the second chamber has a written constitution?

A picture emerges. One where the country edges even closer to the centralisation of power by stealth, one where the few traditions we have left are wiped out along with our identity.

The only amendments needed are to the term ‘democracy.’