I read Robin Cook and Ken Clarke’s proposals for the House of Lords with interest. There’s a lot of it I like, such as a mix of democratically elected members and independently chosen appointees (70-30 in favour of the democratically chosen ones). As much as the checking body must be broadly democratic, the presence of apolitical figures to help the second chamber in its role of supervising legislation is an important feature.

It has other redeeming features, like proportional representation (though hopefully not via the party list system like the European Parliament), and though I’m sceptical of the 12-year terms (bit long, don’t you think?), and the timing of the polls (alternating them with General Elections would be more fun, I think, and keep incumbent governments on their toes), I broadly agree with it. And the biggest redeeming feature is, it’s not as crap as Billy Bragg’s proposals, which involve constituting the Lords via a party list system, in line with the votes at the General Election - which would obliterate any independent’s chance of reaching, and turn it into little more than a duplicate of the House of Commons, rubber-stamping everything that went through.

For a new House of Lords to be democratic and properly functional as the supervisor of legislation passed up from the Commons, there needs to be a mix of the political and apolitical, of partisans and cross-benchers. The new proposals are the best ones that fit the job description - hopefully Charlie Falconer, who unfortunately prefers Bragg’s Commons-lite approach, will think so too.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 25th, 2004 at 22:05:46 and is filed under General.