Leaving aside the issue of electing peers, everyone is agreed that there are too many of us at the moment and that some way needs to be found to reduce the numbers, e.g. a retirement age. I cannot resist drawing attention to this new suggestion made, I think by Armando Iannucci, on The News Quiz on Radio 4 today when the topic of reform came up. Turn the heating off for two days, he said, and natural wastage will do the trick! The chamber is indeed always quite cool: I had thought the temperature was kept low in order to keep us awake . . .
You say “Every-one agrees there are too many in the Upper House, and numbers need to be reduced”;
that is false.
I previously publicly argued that what is needed is not necessarily a reduction in numbers, but
1. An increase in quality, range, depth and forward-orientation, of expertises, life-experience and sustain-worthiness, of whatever numbers there are to be
(in both Houses and, of course, throughout the Judiciary and Civil Service too);
2. An increase in the Parliamentary-Housing size and extent,
especially for a new network of what I called
3. A new democratic Network of Peoples Non-Legislative Centres of Expertises, Life-experience, and Governance (including Legislation)-Preparation and Scrutiny; feeding upwards to the two Houses
(and also providing information and instruction to both The Public in the Lifeplace and Professionals in the Workplace)
which in such a more secure sense would make it possible, and better practical, cost-effective, and democratic, for both Houses to be greatly reduced in numbers
(because most of the preparatory non-legislative work, including most if not all of the Discussion and Scrutiny, would be done by the much greater numbers of expertise and experience throughout the UK Network of Peoples’ Expertises & Sustainworthinesses).
————-
It is false that “every-one agrees the Parliamentary numbers should be reduced”.
================
0059St21May11.JSDM.
66 degrees F. is the maximum temperature for healthy brain function. More than that and it lose the clarity required for ultimate decision making.
The comment on R4’s The New Quiz was from Jeremy Hardy.
Baroness,
If I may request permission to speak.
I may be a bit unlearned on the subject, but from where I can see, the House of Lords was originally lords by birth was it not?
After all, in the beginning years of parliament, the reign was direct. The lords, by birth, had the noble heritage to hold a place for life.
Now, it seems people are being appointed as the world has changed. Perhaps I am just blinded by the new ways, but if I may ask: How many of the nobility are defended of royal families?
Though, perhaps a reduction would be nice, it must first be found, in my opinion, who has a direct reign over an area of interest-if any at all. For example, if the dukes are truthfully still dukes, holding the same rights, then they speak for the province involved.
I feel that these methods were simpler of deciding who was necessary and needed most. One representative of each major area.
-Syst
Dear lady you seem to have acquired a Syst. Some are easily bedazzled by titles, perhaps better to look at the quality behind the title.
When England in 1066 was invaded by Odin’s kin, the Duke of Normandy, a proper bastard by all accounts, had a problem; how to carve up the booty so as to placate his murderous friends the Normans, Bretons and the Île-de-France. To achieve this, an embryonic Parliament was put in place to hear petitions from all and sundry. He needed capable people to offer advice and deal with issues but they were all too busy raping and pillaging so he was forced to order on pain of death his best people to attend court. At this point they had no right of attendance.
History moves on and later Kings still need the help of literate people sometimes of questionable numeracy and time and time again the same ones are ordered to attend Parliament. After a while a King says what the heck lets make it a right by birth for these same people to attend Parliament, saves me having to pick them out each time Parliament sits. This goes on for centuries until 1958 where the old aristocracy are supplanted by the nation’s natural aristocracy as an illegitimate house. William would be SO proud.
As for the chamber being cool; the government is giving the national debt some stick. Ordinarily these tally sticks would fuel the houses central heating boilers but the last time they tried this, the place burned down. So the Commons has come up with a diabolical plan. Treat the nobility in the upper house like emperor penguins. The more you cram into the place the warmer it gets especially in the political centre. The trick is to keep them moving but none of them can agree in which direction to move; after all its not a democracy.
Today I heard a Labour Baroness had been appointed and she breast feeds he son on the terrace in full view of ogling peers. And that is her claim to fame, as well as the reason for the appointment. Another politically correct unheard of individual foisted onto the public purse for no good reason.
At this rate the House of Lords will be full of nothing more than mouth pieces.
Bring in elections fast, otherwise the entire show will be shunned forever.
To fallow my prior comment, though it is off-topic, I see no other posts on it:
Is it true that scotland is trying to get it’s own independence?
Please forgive the randomness of this but, could it not halt the reformation?
Only 92 hereditary peers left and they are likely to be removed under any reform planned. Scotland appears to want independence but if you agree with this, they don’t like it!
Only 92 hereditary peers left! And that is felt to be a few I take it? Horrendously, that is approximately ten percent.
A simple ‘cut off’ age would not be fair on the ‘old duffers’ in there who still make a fine contribution. They could be retained by having –
– a mimimum attendance requirement (one day in every 5-month calendar period, say?) – immediate and irrevocable loss of seat, otherwise
– a maximum total ‘sitting’ time (not including any time before 2015) of 20 years
– the ability of any member, by leave of the house, to retire their seat … retirement payment of 10% of MP’s salary, rising to 20% for over 70’s, and 30% for over 80’s.
There are too many facile arguments about the correct number of legislators in both Houses.
I don’t actually see it as being to my benefit to have the number of MPs arbitrarily reduced from 650 to 600.
I don’t claim that 650 is the ideal number, but nor do I accept that 600 is necessarily a better number than 650.
The problem with the Lords is that members can be added but none removed except by death – and even that doesn’t work for the hereditary peers – or, as I understand, by voluntary leave of absence or in rare cases by the Queen stripping a delinquent peer of his title.
I don’t see a fixed retirement age as being the best answer, but if 80% of the members are elected then the electorate will have a say on whether one of them is past it or still has enough to contribute despite his advanced years.
Well jsdmiles, everyone agrees except you perhaps? No-where to sit, too many people in the library, almost impossible to book a meeting room, little chance of getting on a select committee, too many people wanting to speak. The Chamber and facilities were designed for 250, presumably the number that usually turned up in 1837. Bad with 350, impossible with 400 and unworkable if everyone turned up. One of the problems is that there is very little ‘esprit de corps’ with very large numbers of intermittent attenders because while there is a core of political working peers who turn up regularly there are about 400 who turn up only occasionally for bills/debates that interest them but a different set of people come in every day. That makes it difficult to get to know people except close political allies, there is insufficient cameraderie in the common areas and eating places to foster the notion that we are engaged in a common purpose. It is this that has changed for me in the past 5 years. New women peers for example used to get to know each other quite quickly; now it doesn’t seem so easy or so friendly. You might think this wouldn’t make a difference to the scrutiny of legislation but it makes the politics of the House much more difficult to negotiate. Halving the numbers by encouraging retirement would be a good start.
This is an enormously extensive and historically deeply-negatively entrenched Issue, because it has been starved of the essentials of constitutionally longest-term-strategic balanced-flexibility, and of “win-win-win” friendly cooperative planning and problem-solving.
The times very frequently have been and still are altering, but the two Houses still lag behind.
So it is not simply avoidant and deceptive, nor merely ‘cheap’, to try to smother another-participant’s submission with flash-in-the-pan ad hominem put-down, and ad populum false taking-of-the-Peoples’-Name-in-vain,
it is quite seriously malfeasant:
your ‘group-think’ battle-axe,
“everyone agrees except jsdmiles”
is a failed categorical-statement:
it can not be “everyone (as a single collective-total-mass)”
because there is at least one exception, and in more than one detail;
nor, for the same reason, could it have been a categorically valid argument if you had used the variation “every-one”
(‘though the latter would have looked more as if you had tested the individual positions of every one in a very large and democratic number of The People, and also of the “Colleges of Experts”;
rather than (as you have done) of some unidentifiable conglomeration of ‘majority-hands-up those who think that the core-problem is too many Peers’
and then woollily, foggily, deceptively, letting The People believe that the ‘vote’ has been a unanimous
“Yes, the core-problem is too many Peers;
No, there is not yet a way of reducing their number; and
Yes, some way needs to be found for reducing their number”.
================
Neither have you reasonably scrutinised my submission; in fact you have not acknowledged and answered it, certainly not with appreciative and constructive honesty;
which would make you ‘guilty’ of offending against all three of the Principles of Good Communication & Honest Argumentation:
1. Clearly communicate your own intentions, statements, and argumentation.
2. Charitably appreciate the intention and submission of each other participant.
3. Where shown to be wrong, mistaken, ill-informed, or omissive in your own submissions, be up-front retractive and self-corrective.
————–
You wish for “friendliness” to return;
yet you yourself come with a dagger either drawn and glinting or concealed beneath some judicial or traditional cloth or other;
Therefore,
in such a friendly Method III spirit I now urge you, and all, to become workably familiar with the neglected advances that have been made, among which you will find not only how to come to no-fault grips with your own blindness and “wrong habits that feel right” but how to help others to coalesce into mutual-advancement groups embracing such progress, both right across the highest-top where you now still have a seat of influence, and genericly downwards to include every level of The People
yes, even including
Yours faithfully, jsdmiles.
=============
So thank you for those parts of your own submissions that are (and I am appreciatively aware of some goodly number of them) clear, charitable, and self-corrective;
and I look forward to participating in the increase of the same, for and by all peers and people.
1757Sunday22May2011.JSDM.
I don’t know whether 312 peers is the right number or whether 412 would be really that much netter/worse if it achieved a wider range of knowledge and experience. However the bill to be proposed has a number of serious flaws, some of which were pointed out in the Lords, if not the other place. One consequence of reduction in numbers in a closely balanced house of peers might be to increase questioning on the retention of the episcopal bench, the loss of which I personally would regret, if their votes became pivotal. A reduction to 312 members would also increase scrutiny of who gets appointed to the 60 appointed peer places (20 every five years).
The first flaw is that accountability – Alf Dubs made this point – requires not only election but also the power of the electorate to throw out. With a 15-year term in future and single terms only, that power won’t exist, and also of course people change over years, go native or senile (or both).
The second flaw is that with a house of 312 peers (240 elected, 60 appointed, 12 bishops), the onus will be on all to play their part more fully making them more full-time than many are already. This will make it increasingly difficult for vice-chancellors, serving professors, local authority leaders to play a part. And onerous on retired senior civil servants, field marshals and admirals, vice-chancellors etc. Do we really want a full-time house?
Thirdly, the retirement of existing peers is not yet defined and Lord Strathclyde rightly got a laugh at this point in describing it, I paraphrase, as the tricky bit. He said, and it is true, that there are a number of peers who want to retire. I don’t know the party balance of the would-be retirees, and what we would lose by their departure. What I do know is that there have been an unprecedented 116 appointments in the first year of this coalition, and logic suggests they will be younger than the existing ‘stock’. So all things being equal, retirement will not fall equitably on the current party balance. I think I would prefer random retirement (with the other peers being notified now when their 2020 or 2025 moment will come), and for it to be up to those designated to retire in 2015 to identify a willing substitute from the 2020 and 2025 cohorts, failing which they’re out. Alternatively the first retirement cohort of 1/3 should first remove all remaining 92 hereditaries, with the remainder drawn by lot, with the same willing substitute rule.
The fourth flaw is that each constituency by which the 80 peers will be elected by STV will be colossal, running to millions (as odd as the Euro-elections). Any connection with the electorate will be only notional, party labels being effectively the sole determination of who gets elected. If it is pure STV, i.e. no party lists, the elections will have a lot of playing to the gallery of the mob (shades of Boris v Ken) with candidates dumbing themselves and issues down to achieve election. We will not by this means achieve an intellectually astute revising chamber, and the noise such candidates would make might block out debate on the merits or otherwise of candidates for the Commons, much as elections for the President and senators ‘noise out’ the House elections.
A couple of other observations.
5. Scrutiny of impending legislation is cited as the main role of the future house. From what I see from my armchair, that is mostly done by party-background peers including those sitting on crossbenches. A separate role of the Lords, self-given perhaps, is that of broad-ranging debates on major or particular issues. This is where the so-called ‘expert’ or ‘experience’ peers come in. On the whole, correct me if I’m wrong, votes on these debates are of little moment, with the motion either by leave withdrawn or if pushed to a vote and carried against the government, only of admonitory and warning value, hardly government-breaking. Should there perhaps be a category of non-voting peers.
6. Lord Campbell-Savours raised the possibility of election by an electoral college but received little response positive or otherwise to this. I think more thought should be given to an electoral college made up of candidates at the preceding general election, with each having a vote of value to the first preferences they received (those losing deposits wouldn’t take part), and possibly voting in regional panels to ensure some cross-nation spread of those elected. I believe such a college could pick out the wastrels and windbags more readily than the general electorate. And it might offer opportunities for more ‘expert or experience’ peers to be elected.
I do think this is the best chance for generations of getting Lords reform through. But let’s get it right, and not suffer from unintended consequences.
Good thoughtful stuff, dan.filson … Pity about the hereditary-bashing though … And if we are looking at having some kind of restricted-electorate, how about all county, borough and parish councillors??
It’s not hereditary-bashing, it’s recognising – as the government has done – the need to more to a largely elected house. It cannot seriously be suggested that there should remain in the house until 2020 or 2025 a rump of the 92 remaining hereditary peers at a time when a number of life peers (and any remaining first creation hereditary peers) are turfed out. That’s why I suggest the remaining hereditary peers go in 2015.
On the issue of any electoral college, district, metropolitan borough and county councillors are elected to serve local constituents on local issues, and do not necessarily have any focus on national issues. Candidates achieving at least say 10% of the first preferences for the UK Parliament however do have a focus on national issues, even if the electorate may not have selected them.
But nor can it be seriously suggested that the FIRST to lose their seats should be those who have ALREADY passed through a form of election, to be there!
“A form of election” – Hah! The hereditary peers were not elected by anyone outside their number, and the reduction to 92 was achieved by waving through the Lord Chamberlain and Earl Marshal, and then the other hereditaries being ‘elected’ by their peers. ‘A form of election’ worthy of the Soviet Union.
Lets have the option of zero peers. The benefit of that to us is we stop the fraud.
Or start calling a spade a spade and making it do the work of a spade;
instead of having an array of twisted forks claiming to be expertly efficient spades
(at separating the muck from the clean-earth).
Instead of being a “Peer – subranch Lord (or Baroness)”
let them be re-named and re-classified as (say)
“Upper House Expert in Ancient History (i) World (ii) European (iii) British (iv) Westminster Chambers ((both)) & Resraurants((all))” …
0919 24 jsdm
But what I am trying to figure out:
Those 92 by right are defended from influential bloodlines.
By this logic, would not they have a more weighted say then those elected to the position?
Do you mean defended or descended? A difference of some moment. I can so no possible justification for retention of any hereditary peers after 2015 if the current bill to be presented is aimed at achieving a balanced house of elected and appointed peers. The commission could of course appoint some of the existing life peers to the initial quota of 80, but it would be a difficult and invidious choice.
DF: On your note 5 and the role of the house.
The reality is that for centuries there was no real distinction between both houses; they tended to meld with each other and looking back one might be forgiven in thinking that we had a unicameral system. It is the events of 1911 that serve to essentially separate both houses with the lower house grabbing its primacy by force thereby destroying the previous moderating balance.
The question is what kept both house acting as one for so long?
It has to be the pursuit of tax revenues to fund the ambitions of a ‘single chamber’ Parliament. This has been very destructive and a good example of this is the American Revolutionary War. The citation written by Ohio State Universities Ben Baack demonstrates the point succinctly. The war that lost us the American colonies was not so much about taxation but a separation from prospectively ever increasing taxation without representation in Parliament.
The problem is that time and time again this ‘unicameral’ Parliament wants to kill the goose that lays the golden egg. It will not respond to reason but always takes a short term view on tax revenues because Parliament finds itself in a financial bind for a variety of reasons. The primacy of the Commons today is even worse because its Chancellors go around actively hunting for the golden goose leaving nowhere for it to hide. This is a species mass extinction event.
Contrast this with the Lords today. Its membership embraces sustainable tax revenues by virtue of its members success. Instead of killing the goose that lays the golden egg it wants to put the egg in an incubator to create more wealth. The Commons is trapped by popular democracy; the pressure to spend the national wealth is unrelenting and it cannot entertain the notion of sustainable tax revenues because such is a contradiction in terms.
An empowered indirectly elected house would seek to ensure that tax revenues are sustainable over the long term. The Commons would have no liking for this; it is a hunter gatherer not a farmer.
Ref: The Economics of the American Revolutionary War
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/baack.war.revolutionary.us
I don’t know where you get this idea of Parliament being essentially unicameral for a long period. The Lords always sat separately from the Commons, I thought. What was the case was that the numbers in each house of active members were much, much lower, often only scions of noble houses in the Commons.
The simultaneous statements at the launch of these proposals made it clear that the Commons alone would deal with money bills and all that follows from this. I see nothing to suggest the Lords would acquire extra roles relating to taxation.
DF: Take a peek at this link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Lord_of_the_Treasury
After 1911 the previously established practices became impossible and the cycle was broken. With the prospect of a legitimately elected upper house it becomes possible for the upper house to promote a more managed approach to sustainable tax revenues. Parliament has never really shaken off the taxation banditry that came with the Norman annexation of Britain in 1066, a cycle of boom and bust down the centuries.
The Labour party very nearly achieved an approach to sustainable tax revenues when George Brown embraced this vision within a Department of Economic Affairs in the early 1960’s. He was stopped by the Treasury because another cycle of boom and bust had begun.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Brown,_Baron_George-Brown#Department_of_Economic_Affairs
The vision that George Brown held was inspired but impossible for the Commons to practice and impossible too for the upper house at that time.
With the options presented to debaters for discussion we will end up with Peers who are also “Senators”, as we have designated them,
and will be able to stay in the house for as long as they want.
ONE term is 15 years.
That is far too long. Ten years would not be so bad.
Furthermore only 100 would be elected at each general election during that time to the full number of 300, after those 15 years.
That is not sufficient either. It should be 150 over ten years, ie each five years 150, with 150 transitional, staying from the redundant non elected parliament.
There is a suggestion that they should all be elected in one go all 300, at the first election of peers, a complete clear out.
THAT is how it should be, and yet it is only a suggestion and not an offered option.
The writer of the draft bill seemed to be fearful that the world would come to an end
if that happens (the same as milesJSD does on other subjects!)
MilesJSD wonders
if any-one else as well as Gareth Howell
needs to “wake up” to the fact that the World has already been brought to an end
(but I interrupt to send my humble thank you, for any-one reading my other Submission – and truly comprehending it – and being still able to uninhibitively apply the Three Principles of Good-Communication & Honest-Argumentation
1. State your intention, facts and argumentation clearly;
2. Charitably recognise the good intention in each other participant’s submission.
3. Publicly correct yourself where you see you were mistaken, or shown by another to be misinformed, omissive, or otherwise short-of the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the Truth. )
A salient source to turn to for confirmation of my claim above that the World has already been locked-into Its Extinction, by Individuals in the Common-Lifeplace as well as Almightily by Collectivised- and Individual-Capitalism, is
“How Many People Can Live On Planet Earth” by a highly-expert team of scientists and genuine-leaders, presented by David Attenborough (possibly available from BBC TV;
In short because there is only one Earth;
but “your lot”
(drawing, being handed-out, more than one-human-living from the Common Purse)
have ruled that Economically, Constitutionally, Legislatively, Judicially, Educationally, Socially, Religiously, Spiritually, and Individually,
there is available to be consumed and destroyed
One and one-half Earths !
1047 2605 JSDM.
@danfilson
This ‘form of election’ that you poke fun at is something that the life peers are not prepared to put themselves through! That is why I hold the sitting hereditaries in greater regard.
What is meant by the condensed-term, nicely contributed by Matt,
“restricted-electorate” ?
The primary essential need, that the Second House needs but is not being addressed, I would submit to be threefold:
first and foremost to be made up, in both depth and all-roundness, of current experts. (“persons wise through experience” -EtymologicalDictionary online).
Such primarily-qualifying expertises could surely be long-listed from Institutions and individual-workers already named, available from Life, Academia, and the ‘parliamentary colleges-of-expertises” ?
Second, to be elected by The People, clearly is not yet advisable because it first needs every level of The People to be response-ably enabled (maximally-trained in assembling fact & evidence, in all-round thinking, formal-argumentation & moral-reasoning, and in constructive-participativity);
third, to be balanced by a disinterested-professional electorate – which might also be drawn from the domains of Life, Academia, and Parliamentary-Colleges-of-Expertises ?
If some way could be found of attracting and faithfully-filtering upwards all the input and questions arising from individual-citizens’, and egalitarianly-democratic sub-plenums thereof, during an as yet almost non-existent public-discussion primary-stage which is increasingly being stifled and drowned-out by aggressively-politicised and win-lose competitive Debating stages.
0149T310511.JSDM.
The hyphen is handy but more effective if used sparingly. Otherwise it creates word-compounds-of-a-Germanic-complexity.