Much of the debate around reforming the Lords gets caught up in the idea that the two Houses are rivals, where one gaining legitimacy automatically undermines the capacity of the other to do its job.
In fact, the two Houses work best when they work together, and for that having a more assertive Lords can only be helpful.
In the last week, both Lords and Commons have debated Individual Electoral Registration. It’s an idea that all parties say they support, but which Labour in particular are now being very cautious about, even though the previous Government started the process.
My colleagues and I (at both ends of the building) are determined to see Individual Registration through, because we see that there is a clear, principled case for it. However, there are important amendments that need to be made to the draft proposals if the electoral register is to remain sufficiently complete afterwards.
Most importantly, the Government propose to make registration voluntary; i.e. there would be no fine if you don’t return your registration form. Though very, very few people are ever taken to court for failing to fill it in, under the present system the legal obligation to do so is made clear on every form. This is precisely because it is extremely important in making sure people don’t just forget or put the documents to one side.
We cannot be sure but it may be that with a collective effort on the part of both Houses we are making progress in persuading Ministers. Lord (William) Wallace, the Minister responsible for this in the Lords, recently told Peers, “The Government are looking at whether the offence of failing to return the form from the household should be extended to making it an offence for an individual not to register.” Yes, Minister. David Heath MP made similar reassurances in the Commons.
You can read more about this on my website and in a recent article by Lord (Chris) Rennard. The Commons debate is available here, and the two Lords debates are here and here. You will see that the two Houses are acting in tandem, and that it is having an effect.
In short, when Parliament as a whole asserts itself, neither House loses out to the other, but the Government is held to account.
The big issue with personal responsibility is to do with how individuals are notified that it is time to register for the coming year and how you prove they received it and how you prove that they failed to put a response in the post.
While you’re at it, make it a lot more difficult for people to get postal votes. Having to turn up in person might give a lower turnout, but it’s generally a more honest one, given that it’s relatively easy to subvert the postal voting system.
Two major points need to be put forward here, about the greater-context:
1. “Working Together” in a “government by the People” democracy,
first and foremost needs to start utilising the already published “working together” training-publications for every level of The People (all 63 million or so);
to appropriately enable them with real-life-sustainworthy-living-skills, and as necessarily to skill them in ‘cooperative-classroom’ governance knowledge-&-know-how skills
i.e. every-one needs to be making progress in the finding and sharing of Information, the cooperative Discussion of various Needs & Hows, the Scrutiny of existing Workplace performances and, timeframed last of all in this democratisation, in becoming more competent at Competitive win-lose Debating processes, for deciding which One Legislation will best meet every-one’s real need and be the best-affordable for every-one, first and foremostly affordable by the lowest-income recipient.
Some Helpful Practical Books:
“Joining Together” (Johnson & Johnson);
“Leader/People Effectiveness Training” (Dr Thomas Gordon; the “Method III” of cooperative problem solving);
“Health Care Together” (Johnston & Rifkin);
but most vitally for all levels including high-government and the Monarchic-Establishment TheirSelves,
we all need to become able to work off the same page anywhere throughout
“Six Thinking Hats” (de Bono),
“How To Win Every Argument” (Pirie);
and throughout one other book of participatory-democratisation skills
the title of which at least must surely be left open for a democratic consensus to fill in.
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2. “making progress”
the noble Peers must surely all have studied Leadership know-how enough to recognise very quickly when the appointed or elected or de-facto Leadership is being ignored ?
One such manual sketches the Leader of a licensed Logging Company, out to locate and fell a new tract of jungle, the precise locating of which needs to be done from the highest vantage point.
So the Leader has a secure hold atop a tall swaying tree on top of the highest hill in the whole area,
but sees that the Workteam has already gone into the wrong area, an actually “protected” tract of forest, and has already set to “work”, felling right-left-and-centre with troops of chainsaws.
Loudly the Leader ‘megaphones’
“Wrong jungle!” “Oi” – “Wrong – Jungle !”
But back comes a mighty closed-ranks chorus
“Shaddap – we’re making great PROGRESS here !”
Surely every high-leader, and every lower level of leader in Britain, knows this very common and often disastrous “wrong jungle progress” debacle, and its all-too-frequent and prevailing closed-ranks cover-up?
and surely by now in 2012 even every trainee-leader knows how to overcome such ‘blindness’ and ‘communication-breakdown’, don’t they ?
Or do they ?
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To me it is clear that the mere ganging-up, closing-of-ranks, cartel-like-alliancing, of one House of Government with another,
House-of-Expert-Leaders, legislatively-conspiring against an Electorate who have both experientially and logically long since seen that the mere scratching onto a racehorse-like betting slip-of-paper once every five years is neither human-intelligent nor participatorily-democratic,
constitutes in Real-Life neither “Working together” nor “Making Progress”.
This suggestion makes me uncomfortable. And the reason for that is, it doesn’t make sense.
We already ‘register’ so the change has to encompass more than we already have.
And to mention, as you have, making it something we are legally required to do under threat, is simply another burden placed on the freedom of the citizen.
What needs more scrutiny is why so many people, world wide, are allowed a vote in UK matters not their business. That is an anomaly.
Was the purpose of the legislation not to make it voluntary to sort out the question of the use to which the register is put by other agencies?
If you do not want the agencises to know about you, then you don’t have a vote, would not be good, but rather not being able to go to a doctor for medicine on account of all the other state services they provide…. to the state.
What needs more scrutiny is why so many people, world wide, are allowed a vote in UK matters not their business. That is an anomaly.
And yet it is the norm. It is so obviously not good. I guess my brother who has lived in US for 50 years, has a dual citizenship and the right to vote in Uk elections.
The same applies to the people of Tunisia recently, as many as a third of whom live in Paris and have French ctizenship. The Tunisian elections were decided by the people of Paris.
I don’t suppose the UK govt officials who handed out UK passports to 1/4 of the world’s population gave such possibilities any thought, that they (say all the Zimbaweans living in UK) would have dual nationality and be voting in both places BY POST.