There is a lot of talk about reforming the House of Lords. The way I see it there is a spectrum of legitimacy of power. Right at one end, lets call it 'the bad end' for convenience, is the idea that someone is there because their Dad was and right at the other end is someone being there because they were elected to it.
So far the reform has only moved a little bit along the scale with reducing the number of hereditary peers, which is almost a dictionary definition of half-arsed. In the meantime the remainder are still not elected but either there by virtue of another job they have or by being appointed appointed. Being appointed or recommended by people who have been elected is not really the same as being elected is it?
One of the best ideas for reform in recent years came from Billy Bragg, who suggested that we should vote as normal for MPs and have the Commons elected on the same first-past-the-post principle but then add up all the votes and use them to make up the Lords on a proportional basis.
I quite liked that idea until I thought of a bit of a twist to it. Why not do it the other way round? Vote for a consituency-based Lord but use all the votes to elect the Commons on a proportional basis. (Ok. Neil has worn me down with his arguments for PR)
It might be better to have different names for the two chambers though.
There are several benefits to this:
- The MPs who make up the government could concentrate more on governing and not have to deal with constituency matters, while the second-chamber members could provide a better service to constituents. This is more of a concern for constituencies where the MP is a cabinet member or shadow.
- The main chamber could reduce in number. How on Earth do they manage with so many members. With fewer members they can actually have more productive meetings. Cut the number in half, or maybe even down to 200. Parliament only works (sort of) because there are so many absences – when they all turn up they can't fit in!
- There would be a higher profile for the second chamber. At the moment the Lords is just a mystery place to most of the public who would find it hard to name any of them. Under this scheme the government would still be in the public eye, making pronouncements from their ministries and so on, but the second chamber members would also be known – certainly in their own constituency.
- With such a change everything would have to be re-written so a great opportunity to eliminate the Royal involvement in it all.
- With fewer MPs either they could all have proper jobs in government, so fewer backbenchers, or there could be fewer jobs, some of which sound as if they were made up anyway.
Ok, so I haven't really got beyond what movie folk call the high concept and haven't thought about any of the details, but its a starting point for arguments.
Other reforms would have to include:
- Moving out of that dreary building. Has there ever been a building less suited to its purpose? Most local councils have better facilities for debating – like actually having a desk in front of you to put papers on. How can you run a country when the government are all sitting their with piles of paper on their laps?
Just think of a new building with MPs sitting at desks, with a voting console so they don't need to waste half an hour going through lobbies every time there is a vote. (With some sort of fingerprint recognition to stop anyone casting a vote at the empty desk next to them, obviously). The chamber could be built with a large display screen so speakers could use visual aids when necessary. In fact it could generally be more 21st Century than 19th century.
- Sort the hours out. Having made a step forward in family-friendly hours they took another step back again last year. Start at 9 and knock off at 5, or even 7? Only sit for 2 or 3 days a week but sit for more weeks of the year? The first chamber wouldn't have to worry about constituencies to go back to, but they would need time to spend with their departments and staff.
- Sort the language out. How do newly-elected MPs or those with newly-bought peerages cope? Why must there be a minefield of protocol and arcane practices? Its almost as if the whole set-up was designed to make anyone normal feel like an outsider and maintain the clubby, Westminster-Village atmosphere. The same goes for all the silly clothes and wigs and anachronistic jobs like Sergeant-at-Arms. It wouldn't surprise me if they still had reeves and beedles!
- If you are moving to a new building, why limit yourself to Central London? All the arguments about ministers needing to be close to their ministries and so on would be moot, since I would have them spread over the country anyway!
- Fixed terms. One of the biggest farces in politics is that two-year period when everyone wastes most of their time speculating about whether and when an election will take place. Settle on 4 or 5 years and stick to it. Another idea would be to elect the 'Lords' by thirds like some councils do and then vote for the 'Commons' in the fourth year? Still with election matters – fix the election dates to be separate from local council elections for several reasons.
Just a thought. And an opportunity for Tyger to take the piss out of me.
Well I prefer the original idea – leave the Commons as it is and have a proportionally elected House of Lords.
Reducing the number of MPs would be very populist, but MP’s such as Nick Palmer who writes on Political Betting, report that the job has turned into a sort of social services function and they get about 100 letters a day and can’t keep up – increasing the sizes of their constituencies would mean they’d barely get any Commons work done (though maybe that would be good as it would result in fewer laws!)
My real reason for popping in was to wish you a Merry Christmas. Hope 2007 is the year you get re-elected!
I think you missed the main point, which is that the MPs would be elected by PR from a party list so would not have any constituency link. Constituency work would be done by the new Lords along the same boundaries as now.
Re-election in 2007 is about as likely as an extremely unlikely thing. I am standing in a very safe Tory seat in May. Which is the way I prefer it.
The trouble with having to rewrite everything under your new plan is that most of it is unwritten anyway. Given how long it has taken to get the small amount of reform so far it would probably take a revolution to get a new concept planned out, boundaries redrawn, consultation documents, oh my god I’m losing the will to think about it any more…..
“The MPs who make up the government could concentrate more on governing and not have to deal with constituency matters..”
Totally against this notion, Skuds. Those governing us need to be made MORE accountable to the people they govern on behalf of, not less.
Personally I would favour a second chamber entirely elected entirely on the basis of PR. They would be a revising, scrutiny chambeer, but ultimately, as at the moment, the ultimate power would reside with the Commons.
Skuds. Glad to hear you have come over to supporting PR.
I think it is very telling that not even die hard supporters of ‘first past the post’ propose it for the new chamber. Even they know it is an archaic backward system. The inertia of the status quo is basically the most powerful factor in keeping FPTP. People are very conservative when it comes to change which is why progress can be so painfully slow.
I like your idea of list PR for the first chamber but I don’t actually see the point in using FPTP for the revising chamber.
As for the argument that this would make the first chamber less accountable, this is a discredited argument. Apart from a handful of marginals, FPTP has all the disadvantages of a closed list system with none of the advantages.
I could predict now which party is going to win which seat in 2009/10 in about 75% of the seats and the bookies wouldn’t even give me odds. How democratic is that? You could be the best MP in the world but in most seats without the ‘right’ party label you cannot win. Also change the boundaries and you can change the government without changing a single vote. FPTP is more about geography than democracy. It is rotten.
59% of the electorate cannot even name their MP and 68% of the electorate do not vote for them. There is not a single constituency where the MP gets a majority of those entitled to vote for them and some get as few as 9% of potential voters (George Galloway).
Also of course, list PR doesn’t have to be closed list. I prefer regional open list PR where the electorate choose who are elected not the parties. Although closed list is still preferable to FPTP.
As for your ideas on the building and etiquette, these to me are interesting but minor points.
For more about the advantages of PR for socialists and democratssee here.
I haven’t forgotten, just busy…
I did say I hadn’t thought about all the details!
If you started from scratch with a blank sheet, like Plato did for The Republic, you might come up with several aims or ideals which are mutually exclusive to some degree, and have to make some compromises.
Assuming you went for a bicameral model, on the basis of having some checks and balances built in you might want a connection between politicians and an area/constituency, not so much workload for politicians from the constituency casework that it interfere with governing, and a smaller, more manageable size for parliament.
Reduce the numbers and keep the connection and you get bigger areas/more casework. One of the three ideals has to go.
Constituents would still have their MP in the second house, which would raise the profile of a second house as well.
Bob – maybe your council meetings are so well-run that you can imagine them running smoothly when scaled up to over 600 members, but I still think that a smaller executive body would work better.
I only suggested FPTP for the second chamber to keep that constituency link. (Maybe STV in constituencies would be better) As I am a product of my environment I was not really able to ‘do a Plato’ and start from scratch – I was adapting what we have to a certain extent more to stimulate some debate than to suggest I had the answer.
Now I think about it, there are even some benefits to removing the geographical link for MPs. A Welsh Tory, for example, would not have to move to the Home Counties to be get into parliament.
It could be argued that you would end up with career politicians who go straight from Uni, through the party ranks until they get put on the list to be an MP, but then that is what already happens with party favourites getting parachuted into safe seats. If a posh ex-public schoolboy gets drafted into a mining constituency (to take an extreme example 🙂 ) is he really going to have a great affection for that area beyond that generated by dependency?
Really, of course, it is absurd to even think about changing parliament without looking at all the other structures too – is there any point tinkering with it without looking at what powers might be devolved away to local authorities or regional authorities? If many of the issues which most of us are really concerned about where dealt with at a more local level would we really need to access an MP as much for example?
I’m not even going there!
Surely theres not much point reforming parliament until you sort out the bungled devolution issue.
After all until devolution is sorted properly you dont know what Parliament is going to do?
I have been given a completely different radical change to Parliament for Xmas. I’ll write it up over the holidays and publish something after New Year.
On this, I have to say that it makes more sense to have the Lords as PR and the HoC as FPTP. That way, the Lords will retain the aspect of patronage that it has, and will never have a majority.
I quite like having the MP system. As Ash suggests, we should tidy up the effects of devolution at the same time, though. Rejig the regions a bit, give them (and Greater London) the same powers as at least the Welsh Assembly, and at the same time do something to equalise the constituents per-MP across the UK.
But such things are too radical for a timid New Labour government.
Ash – I agree. Thats what I meant by saying that changing parliament without looking at “other structures” is pointless – except as a mildly diverting parlour game and pub discussion.
There is a decision to be made about devolution and how far powers are devolved, and how to bring the same level of devolution to England, or its regions, as the Welsh, Scots, and Northern Irish have. If a number of day-to-day responsibilities are removed from parliament, then it changes all the considerations.
Danivon – even removing all hereditary Lords was too radical for the New Labour government when it had an enormous majority and could really have done anything it wanted to.
Some really good ideas. I very much like the idea that lawmakers should be freed of responsibility to any constituents on localised issues. Yes, they should be accountable for making good laws which are relevant to their electorate, but they should be dislocated enough to address big picture issues. I actually rue the demise of the regional assemblies, but I think they should have been partnered with much more radicalised constitutional reform. Otherwise they would just become another pointless and expensive bureaucratic membrane.
I actually also think a modern, glass and steel, new parliament building would be fantastic. The current ‘campus’ is ill suited to modern politics. I’m sure it would make a wonderful museum of democracy.
On the new parliament/senate, maybe somewhere purpose built on the outskirts of London, with a highspeed rail-link? Or we create a city like BrasÃÂlia, the Brazilain capital, which was a planned city to house The National Congress.
Maybe we should use Milton Keynes?
…I’ll get my coat.
Milton Keynes? When Crawley is so convenient for everywhere? Didn’t Australia and the US also locate their seats of government in purpose-built locations?
I like regional assemblies too. There are decisions which would never get made if they were made locally – like siting a new prison, waste incinerator, travellers site, sewage treatment plant. Everyone wants or needs them to exist as long as they are somewhere else. If all decisions were local those necessary but undesirable infrastructure facilities would never get built, but national government is a bit too high up for that. What I don’t like about the regional government idea is the definition of the South-East region: its far too big and unwieldy, especially the way it wraps round London.