Jack Straw's ideas on House of Lords reform, leaked in yesterday's Sunday Times, show that the government is at last talking the language of democratic reform of the second chamber. This is a welcome, if overdue break with the quietism of previous government proposals for a fully or 80%-appointed Lords.
A 50%-elected element, an indepedent appointments commission, term limits (3 terms of around four years) and proper salaries for members are all a step in the right direction. But, as the Unlock Democracy campaign points out, most people, not unreasoably, want to elect all, not just some of their representatives.
Straw's concern that an all-elected Lords would be 'more political' is misplaced. At present, supposedly apolitical crossbenchers are both no such thing and, as Unlock Democracy point out, have very poor attendance records, voting in just 12% of divisions. And peers who do adopt party labels (the vast majority) are no more likely to defy the whips than MPs in any case.
MPs will again get to vote on what proportion of the upper house should be elected, probably just after Christmas. The hope must be that they will be in a similar - though more decisive - mood to when they fell just a few votes short of endorsing an 80%-elected chamber. In this sense, the formula must be: 'the more the better'.
In my opinion the more elected lords in the second chamber the better. It is important that the House of Lords represent the expression of the will of the people. In order for the two-chamber system to properly work, members in the second chamber must not be directly accountable to the electorate as members in the House of Commons are. I think that members in the second chamber should be elected by raw proportional representation so legislation form the house of commons can be properly scrutinised.
Posted by: Bert Jones | Sunday, October 29, 2006 at 11:20 AM