Joint Committee of the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill (Adam Teladia)

Joint Committee of the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill

October 17, 2011 12:01 AM

Back in September I made a submission to the Joint Committee of the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill using the form on Unlock Democracy's website. I have copied my submission below.

A smaller chamber of 300 members would be great to start with but it would be good if the size of the reformed second chamber was limited to half size of the House of Commons so any future reduction in the size of the House of Commons would lead to a reduction in the size of the reformed second chamber.

The reformed second chamber should be a 100% elected chamber in the twenty-first century there is no need for a liberal democracy like the United Kingdom to have any legislators who are not elected by the public. Our laws are currently being passed by a chamber of aristocrats, bishops, businessmen, charity workers, judges and ex-MPs who have little if any support from members of the public. If a new democracy like Egypt, Libya or Tunisia decide that some members of its legislature should be chosen by their Head of State and political leaders or that part of their national legislature should be appointed by the head of government and political leaders because of their wealth, religious affiliation or support of their political leaders in the past, politicians from across United Kingdom would rightly question if that was quite the commitment to democracy that we were hoping for. So should we not now reinforce our commitment to democracy by only supporting an elected second chamber in our country? The reformed second chamber should have powers to co-opt academics (i.e. Dr Robert Winston), former civil servants (i.e. Robin Butler) and others with special experience, familiarity or understanding such as Adair Turner or Geoffrey Dear to their scrutiny committees on Individual Bills or for departments. I also believe that the Bishops should be removed from the House of Lords but that elected members should be able to co-opt religious "leaders" if they want on to scrutiny committees on Individual Bills or for departments if they believe they could benefit from their expertise. Should the reformed second chamber should include any non elected members then the reformed second chamber should have a final say on who these non elected members are.

Elections would be by a proportional system the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system would be most appropriate and all seats should roughly the same size, it would be best if constituencies did not cross national borders and if traditional county and local boundaries we taken into account when creating constituencies.

Elections should not take place at the same time as general elections but should take place half way through a House of Commons term and members should be elected in thirds for terms of 10 years.

The reformed second chamber should not be called the House of Lords its name should reflect its makeup and should pay respect to the people who choose who represents them in the chamber.