I did a few posts on my blog during the night as the marathon sitting on the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Bill was under way. The House sat from 2.30 p.m. yesterday to 12.53 today (Tuesday) and at one point took the exceptional step of passing a closure motion to bring debate on one amendment to a close. (The procedure is so exceptional that the occupant of the chair has to read out a statement drawing attention to the fact that it is exceptional.) Progress was agonisingly slow, with regular digressions to discuss the role of the MP and time taken up with protestations that the speaker was not seeking to delay proceedings (in so doing delaying proceedings). There was considerably more heat than light. It did not show the House in a good light, but I suspect if the House was elected this type of behaviour may become the norm.
There was not much goodwill on either side: peers recognised what was happening but neither side appeared prepared to budge. I suspect that sooner rather than later (I hope the former) both will get together to discuss how to make progress.
Well we can imagine if it had been elected House with a Labour majority it wouldhave been over a lot quicker.
Carl.H: The assumption is that, given the electoral system, no party would have a majority.
As I understand the proposal for an elected Lords, an election would occur every 5 years electing 1/3 the House.
Hypothetically:
Labour-Conservative-Labour are the consecutive Governments elected and are therefore represented in those terms in the House of Lords. This gives Labour a majority, of course this works in Conservatives favour after the next five.
I’d have five-year terms, electing 20% every year.
Although I’m not convinced that election would produce anything better than what we have, we’d just have Commons Mk2, with a valid claim to equal status and abolition of the Parliament Act that currently states otherwise.
Perhaps there should be a bar on anyone who’s served more than four years as an MP from being in the Lords, or at least introduce a quota system to limit their numbers. That would reduce the influence of professional politicians and let the rest of the peers get on with the job and avoid party politics.
Good thinking Dave H.
Let it not be forgotten that the United States Senate is the father of the filibuster in all its guises. I tried to watch as much of the debate as I could consistent with also having some sleep and I didn’t see exceptional amounts of wandering off the subject or repetition.
There will have to be some compromise on this subject, but it is difficult to see it coming while the Government remain so adamantly insistent on setting inflexible rules for new constituency sizes. I don’t think people realise just how strange some of the new constituencies are going to be if the current proposed rules are operated. Nor do the Conservative proponents of the Bill realize that differential constituency sizes makes a relatively small contribution to the way that the electoral system tends to give more seats to Labour on smaller shares of the vote.
So far as I can see, “the electoral system tends to give more seats to Labour on smaller shares of the vote” mostly only if huge majorities are accumulated in Conservative-held seats whilst small ones in Labour-held seats, or if the non-Labour vote is split between two parties (a situation I don’t see recurring much longer). This has not always been the way matters have transpired – 50 years ago there were more seats where huge majorities accumulated in Labour-held seats whilst smaller ones in Conservative-held seats. You will only rectify this by a system of PR or AV+, which many abhor for the loss of each voter only having one MP.
As to a House not being seen in a good light, I was not greatly impressed by the other place having an extended amount of banter about the white wine at Number 10. Nick Boles and Chris Bryant, and one or two others, seemed to be having a private party in public.