Taking up Lord Norton’s recent blog, I have enormous sympathy with the desire to slow down or stop the appointment of new peers; there are already far too many of us and there simply isn’t enough space. But stopping appointments seems to me the wrong way to go about reducing the numbers. Far better to keep refreshing the House with new blood and make it far easier for existing peers to retire. If everyone over 75 were to retire we would immediately reduce to a reasonable 350 or so. I don’t propose we should have a statutory retirement age; I would refer a voluntary assisted retirement scheme of the kind that has recently been under consideration by the Procedure Committee as a result of the report of the Leader’s group chaired by Lord Hunt of Wirral, (which I served on).
The House needs to change and develop and whilst some of the newer peers have yet to shed their ‘Other Place’ stroppiness, most have brought the energy, enthusiasm and commitment to their new job which is heartening. The majority of long-serving peers are political appointments and the new ones don’t seem to me to be very different; as long as they realise they are appointed to do a job and do it, new blood is fine by me. There are simple ways to get back to the right numbers so it doesn’t feel such a scrum; we just need to implement them.
The last thing we need in the UK is more peers. We are already overrun with them.
However, this predicament has come about because ‘Blair’ polluted the Lords to full capacity with his cap doffing cronies. As a result, a political imbalance was created. So, DC feels he wants to readjust the system to his political favour.
What he should of done was get rid of those already there erroneously, by changing the laws that allow those not necessary to remain indefinitely. Now that would have made sense.
There has to be a way to trim the hair here. For what we are seeing is flea ridden tresses overgrown and outdated and in dire need of a chop.
http://www.pepysdiary.com/p/344.php
An hereditary-style by-election would be the most efficent and effective method of reduction … Would you put yourself forward for this; and what would your 75-word blurb be??
The trouble with the self governance of the Lords is, it really isn’t. Although a great deal of members appeared behind Lord Steel’s reforms,which are quite old now, or at least a majority of them, they were unable to implement them.
The seperation of powers seems not quite so seperate and the Commons seem more and more able to manipulate the House. Reform from the Commons would only seek to give it total power over what should be an independent power. I feel the House has been checked in a game and it will not belong till it is mate.
The House is already too much like the Commons in it’s political division and power, I have always felt more neutrality and independence was necessary with Parties NOT in control.
Matt I used to agree with you about by-elections but I’ve gone off the idea. I wonder what other organisations’ staff would feel about a similar reducing of their numbers by voting folk out with sudden cut-off of an income for those who lost and no redundancy pay? No don’t respond, I can guess the answer, one rule for real people, another for politicians. And would I stand for election? No, not now, but I might have 5 or 6 years ago. The major argument against by-elections is that we would be subject to endless electioneering. We have too much playing to the gallery already; don’t lets encourage more.
You could always have an event before the State Opening, all peers to race three laps round Parliament Square (wearing robes), the first 300 get to sit in the chamber for the session. It’s as good as any other method of reducing the numbers and at least you’d get to sell tickets to watch.
We do not need more Peers, nor Fewer Peers; nor more MPs nor Fewer MPs.
Urgently construct a multi-tiered Experts-to-Public participatory Network;
and meanwhile “freeze” the two Parliaments memberships.
We are almost at a watershed-revolutionary point where none of the old and none of the new Peers, and none of the Lower House MPs, nor any Civil-Service arm, can be trusted to govern positively and positivisingly, neither for the short-term nor the longest-term Sustain-worthiness of our old nor new English-speaking civilisation.
The UK’s Prince Charles in the EU a few days ago used a ‘reform’ terminology “resilient nature” and “resilient economics”,
but much more clarity of Scope is needed than mere short- to medium term 100 years ‘resilience’ and ‘sustainability’.
We need an all-round peaceful and cooperative revolution to establish
(1) A new Civilisational-Sustainworthiness,
(2) A new right-way-up efficiency and positivisation model of Individual & Collective Human Development, for respectively our 75% timeframed individual lifeplace, and the 25% timeframed collective Workplace.
Given an all-round-effective Experts-Network, engaging the People in information and discussion stages before advising upwards, we would need far fewer MPs and Peers.
But otherwise, we certainly already need much better up-to-date and forward-oriented qualities and quantities of Peers;
which in turn means we urgently need more state-of-the-art modern-parliamentary buildings and equipments;
and shall still keep on returning to the more major democratic modernisation need, of the above Experts-to-Public Participatory Network.
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@ Lady Murphy:
1.Have redundancy payments by all means. I suggest 10% of an MP’s salary.
2. Once elected, your seat would only become vacant upon your death/retirement/disqualification for prolonged non-attendance.
Fair enough?
I’m facing the prospect of redundancy myself … and there is plenty of ‘political manoevering’ going on in my workplace, let me tell you. It’s as close as dammit to a ‘voting out’ system.
Matt its sad to hear you say this; if you have issues get them out in the open here on the blog. There is many a peer that has been through redundancy at one time or another so you are assured of understanding and a sympathetic ear.
Dave H,
Your scheme is by far the best so far. Why are we stopping at only 3 times round the square? I am slightly worried that unless there was a sophisticated handicap system (worked out in a series of heats like Formula 1 perhaps) we might end up with that fit looking handful of young hereditaries and not many others. But it would undoubtedly solve the problem.
Matt, your 10% of an MP’s salary might prove quite attractive to many who turn up only rarely but I fear not enough to reduce numbers on a voluntary basis. But surely when we get elected peers you don’t want them to stay for as long as the current ones do? A maximum of 15 years service is enough in any job. But more seriously I’m sorry to hear you are facing redundancy and hope you get a fair deal.
@ Lady Murphy
If you would prefer to have a time limit, then I suggest a maximum of 20 years (not including any time before 2015), for one person to sit in any capacity (or combination of capacities). With a three-parliament term for elected peers, if one of them had to ‘drop out’ early for any reason, then someone else could replace them for a few years, and then stand again for a full 3-parliament term later.
Have redundancy payments by all means. I suggest 10% of an MP’s salary.
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Why not 10% of a Lord’s salary?
No salary – no redundancy payments.
Lets be quite clear. One of the major reasons people are being laid off is the incompetence of politicians, and the looting of public money.
For example, if you are finally made redundant, how are you going to pay the 300,000 they have run up for each household in the UK?