After 30 meetings of the Joint Committee scrutinising the Government’s House of Lords Reform draft bill – and long sessions of assertion and deliberation – I confess I have been somewhat exhausted. However, I must record one extremely important – and positive – lesson.
Every one of the Joint Committees on which I have served, as an MP and latterly as a Peer, has been an eye-opener. I have learnt so much about the other House, and witnessed the evolution of a consensus as other Members better appreciated the circumstances in which we all had to operate, in the interests of Parliament as a whole.
This Joint Committee was certainly no exception. It was especially noticeable that the four 2010-elected Conservative MPs very speedily picked up the significance of the various issues, so far as the Lords were concerned, and led the debates in favour of the Government’s plans. But all members – whatever their basic approach to the reform agenda – expressed pleasure at the way in which the Committee worked together to identify areas of agreement. For example, we were united in urging Ministers to pull back from their original suggestion of a relatively small full-time Parliamentarian House and accept the value of some part-time Members, whether elected or appointed, to encourage continuing involvement in other walks of life. We were agreed that too much of our current expertise is getting a bit out-dated, while the Commons is too full of full-time politicians. We should be different!
We also looked at the issue Lord Soley deals with in his pieces this week: the right of the Commons to have its way. This will continue in a reformed Lords partly because members elected for a single, long-term will have a palpably lesser mandate than MPs, who have to subject themselves to regular re-election. To that end, the Parliament Acts will remain in place.
However, we were agreed that the Lords would be more assertive in putting and persisting with its case against over-mighty governments using their lumpen majority in the Commons. At the moment sensible amendments are over turned, no matter how compelling the case in their favour. A stronger check and balance on all governments, of whatever hue, is one I would welcome.
The Committee was exceptionally thorough on this and on all the issues. And, with due credit to the Chairman, Lord Richard, it was also a classic case of mutual education of Peers and MPs. Is it too much to hope that we will continue to listen to each other (as well as to the public, whom we all serve) as this process continues in the coming new Session ?
PS: I plan to speak at the end of the debate tomorrow, to highlight some of the absurd claims anti-reformers have made about the cost of reform.
while the Commons is too full of full-time politicians
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So is the Lords, and lots of them have been kicked out by the electorate.
as well as to the public, whom we all serve,
There is no evidence whatsoever that you do. What instead we get instead is a stream of lies about government finances.
I sat and learned with some pleasure in the galleries of the commons select committees, and standing/bill committees and the one thing
I certainly did think was that at the very least new members and those of the HofL DO, and that is to learn about Public administration in a way that for example
the German people were not learnéd in the 1920s and 30s, which was said in some measure to have been a contributory cause of the dictatorship and war, or the Russians not Learned at the end of communism which led to the galloping inflation and Yeltsin.
At the very least, the HofL provides further learning for those who want it, about the way the country is run, and there are even a few
Peer minsters who will come and explain in even more detail as needs be.
At best, it is the best club in London. At least a place for learning about the art and science of Public Administration.
A radio 3 broadcast a couple of weeks ago from LSE lecture hall with a professor leading a discussion, may have referred to it as the philosophy of public administration.
It is a branch of philosophy, possibly not formally so; it takes time to grasp; it is not particularly difficult to understand, but there always needs to be a certain number of people in a nation state who do understand it; otherwise the state falls apart in a time of crisis, which can occasionally happen.
So can I take it you work for the Lords?
So can I take it you work for the Lords? No, but Blagger is not a lady.
The “learning” that every individual and every Organisation all around the World needs to be engaging in is that of
“Being”
and “Doing”
sustain-worthily.
———–
It is tragically evident that there is no Member of either the Commons or the Lords who is both familiar with and self-lifestyling upon
Sustain-worthily “Being” and “Doing”*.
“Listening to and learning the Words” is sometimes an important preliminary;
but like the “Talking Therapies” is useless without the Main Learning Timeframes being devoted to the actual experiencing of sustainworthy “Being” and sustainworthy “Doing”,
of real-life-on-the-ground,
and both the legislating thereof in favour of the most impaired and disadvantaged of British Subjects
and the exemplary sustain-worthy self-lifestyling thereupon by our Leaders and Rulers.
———–
see previously submitted Sources of such advances in both better sustain-worthy Human Movement enablement and Human Healthiness
(e.g. “Inner Focus – Outer Strength” by Eric Franklin).
So can I take it you work for the Lords?
Gladly no,B lag, but the same criteria apply to the learning process in the HofC, when new members arrive, and arrive in force, every few years.
I was replying to lord Tyler’s remarks about the learning process which is certainly true, not meaning to infer that abolition would not be the best option, or certainly a reduction
of about 90% in membership of the Lords’ House.
Since nobody mentions the over riding need for EU delegated legislation to be “scrutinized” (arrgghh!) I would say that the house is totally useless, but it is true
that people like the Baroness Tammi Grey Thompson, who wrote here about her own learning process, they do learn in the place itself!
Perhaps people like that only realize how useless it is after joining it!!!
I may say that the noble Lord Tyler is notable for his sincerity. He must have thought it was good value when he entered from the Commons, and he does now!!
The word “scrutinize”, its activity, seems to be the one purpose of the place!
So can I take it you work for the Lords?
Gladly no,Blag, but the same criteria apply to the learning process in the HofC, when new members arrive, and arrive in force, every few years.
I was replying to lord Tyler’s remarks about the learning process which is certainly true, not meaning to infer that abolition would not be the best option, or certainly a reduction
of about 90% in membership of the Lords’ House.
Since nobody mentions the over riding need for EU delegated legislation to be “scrutinized” (arrgghh!) I would say that the house is totally useless, but it is true
that people like the Baroness Tammi Grey Thompson, who wrote here about her own learning process, they do learn in the place itself!
Perhaps people like that only realize how useless it is after joining it!!!
I may say that the noble Lord Tyler is notable for his sincerity. He must have thought it was good value when he entered from the Commons, and he does now!!
The word “scrutinize”, its activity, seems to be the one purpose of the place!
Since nobody mentions the over riding need for EU delegated legislation to be “scrutinized”
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And what’s wrong with democracy and the electorate doing the scrutinisation?
It’s called democracy. If the electorate look at the bill, and decide no, then its the end of the bill. What’s the EU going to do about a democratic vote? Are you suggesting that they follow the Lords and impose their dictate on people who don’t want the bill?
@Gareth Howell:
What I took from Lord Tylers post on this thread is, the Lords are making an effort to change the pattern they have used so far in committees, etc.. Hopefully this will mean that they will benefit from the process and that will be of advantage to the rest of us in time.
It will not happen overnight, too much vested interest will do all they can to block any kind of democratic advance, as it is not in their interests to see it flourish.
I see it as a first step in an effort to restore the sense of trust we all so desperately need to experience.
I wait with bated breath for the insight to follow.
The second part, and where I tend to agree with you, is a role the Lords have taken on. However, they are pathetic at the job.
Bar the approval of laws that have been found to be illegal, to other documented human rights abuses they have imposed, you have to look at productivity.
I’ve pushed Philip Norton on this, and he’s particularly unwilling to debate or put numbers up. Same when it comes to the cost of running a Peer for a day (2,700 pounds).
How many ammendments originate in the Lords and make it onto the statute books. There measure of ‘productivity’. Now you can take tabled ammendments, but most of those come from government ministers correcting their own mistakes in the Lords. So knock those off. Then knock off the rejected ones. Then knock off the ones reversed in the commons. End result is particularly pathetic. For that we are paying hundreds of millions over a term.
What is beginning to march on Britain’s streets, as well as to “occupy” Establishmentarian Places around the world, is the realisation that both our Civilisational Experts and our Financial & Political Governors
are “subjugating” us
pulling the wool over our eyes
remaining arrogantly inexperienced in real-life on the ground (one-human-being is entitled to but one-human-living for instance) but blindly out of touch with those millions of us who have such sustainworthy experience on-the-ground
(one who can live healthily off £300 per week is 10 times more sustain-worthy than one who draws £3000 per week from the Common Purse).
——
The subsequent problem is going to be that the leaders of the imminent marches and rebellions will also be demanding multiple-human livings from the Common Purse !
——
Plan A and Plan B both being doomed to Failure
Will the “third way” prove both possible and mutually pursuable ?
“The World is in a mess
Whatever shall I do ?
God in greatest mercy says
‘Just make a better you’ “.
(New leaderful reference, about the basic efficiency of one human being:
“The Busy Person’s Guide to Easier Movement –
50 ways to achieve a healthy, pain-free and intelligent body”
by Dr Frank Wildman PhD., C.F.T. following following the peace-leading Israeli,
Dr Moshe Feldenkrais)
Political Governors
are “subjugating” us
pulling the wool over our eyes
The working of the human soul is an extraordinary thing.