Comparing the speeches

An interesting analysis over at Tim Dodds’s Lightwater blog on the leaders’ speeches. I’ve commented.

Opening the Upper House

Packed with cronies or open for applications?

It’s a quiet Friday today, not much new in the papers – I’m waiting for the documentation for the October 1 Woking Borough Council meeting to be available.

Looking through some of my recommended blogs, I return to Tim Dodds’s post earlier today about Labour’s Baronesses. I agree with him that it’s a bit of a mockery that these wonks and flunkies hold the same honour as Lady Thatcher, our greatest post-war PM, without having done much, or indeed anything, to have deserved it.

But leaving that aside, I’m interested in his thoughts on how to reform the house of Lords, make it properly democratic and representative, yet also a force for holding the government to account. I think it is also vital to prise away honours system from politicians and the civil service machine. Honours are a great institution of our country – but like much else, they have been brought to the brink of ruin by Labour.

Clearly the current ”life peers” are just a vehicle for government patronage. It’s not democratic, it’s not fair and it has no place in the UK. But a fully-elected chamber would inevitably find itself – even staggering the elections in between parliamentary ones – in a position where it was dominated by a governing party and not able to hold the Commons properly to account.

I was in favour of this arrangement because the American model works well – but am now less sure.

Anything in between is a hotpotch, whether it’s 50% or 70%. Voters have enough difficult understanding how everything works at the moment without having to add another election using yet another system into the mix.

I wonder whether appointment to the Lords shouldn’t be the same as appointment to, say, the magistracy. That is, limited to a particular number of people who apply for the posts in an open process. We don’t need more than 200 members of the Lords, all of whom could be paid a small salary – say £10,000 – plus sensible expenses and apply to an independent board, set up as a charitable trust rather than a quango.

Lords would be selected for appointment by the board and then recommended by the PM to the sovereign. At the beginning of each parliament, the board – not the PM – would work out under proportionality rules the political make-up of the Lords, including cross-benchers, and announce the actual membership during an initial meeting in the chamber. Only those sitting as members will be allowed to use their titles.

The board would then be in charge of monitoring attendance and behaviour of peers, with their party retain only the right to withdraw the whip. Those peers not pulling their weight may find themselves omitted from the next parliament and each year, the board would publish an annual report on its activities and those of peers for consideration by the Privy Council and public.

Obviously it’s impossible to completely exclude political influence from a political institution and the civil service would need to be involved in administering the new arrangements. But the principle of taking politicians’ favours away and handing them to an open and transparent body for due process would be an encouraging and refreshing change.