The Lords' Tale (Part 1)

Molly Dineen's documentary recalling the events of 1999 when hereditary peers were kicked out of the House of Lords.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• House of Lords Act 1999
• Hereditary Peers
• Peers of the Realm
• Life Peers
• Labour Party
• Lords Reform
• Parliament
• Westminster
• Lord Chancellor
• Mace
• Baroness Jay of Paddington

[kanenkitten]

I find it outragous that B.liars commoner government would throw a law that would destroy the Lord's right to be a member of the House of Lords through.

[desiretheright]

@kanenkitten I agree. The House of Lords is integral to the UK's Constitution. A constitution is a rulebook by which a government has to play by. What is the point of a constitution if any Government can just come along and change it as they like?

Purging legitimate members of the legislature is better known to military dictatorships, not Britain.

[LightYearsFromHere]

@Apachecatdog Over-representation is the idea. Proportional representation is in the House of Commons. Since the Lords is only there for legislative tweaking and approval of constitutional issues, it only makes sense to treat the constituent countries of the United Kingdom as equals. Scotland, Wales, and Ulster are nations in of themselves that choose to be united with England. To treat them as just percentages of the population is exactly what gives fuel to the separatist parties.

[ToaJoe]

@MrToadful I hate everything the Lords has done in it's history. Look at the Liberal reforms of 1906- that was not 'slowing down' radical change, it was straight up denying democracy! The Lords are anti democratic by country miles. You talked about the constitutional preservation- the lords can't block legislations forever. MPs are not stupid animals who don't care for the past. But there is something called progress, and the lords trying to block the AV referndum was pathetic.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe Furthermore on the "radical left wing governments", I firmly believe one of the points of the Lords is to slow down radical change. It's there to act as a counter-balance with years of experience behind it. What's the point in having a second Chamber if it simply sits there and allows the Government to trample all over the Constitution whilst it enacts its ideology and tramples upon centuries of past experience? The short-term whims of career politicians do not trump the Constitution.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe And the Conservative party doesn't want an unelected Chamber. Read their manifesto: "We will work to build a consensus for a mainly-elected second chamber to replace the current House of Lords". And the Coalition Agreement commits the government to much the same. "...bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation." Clegg's going for 80% elected, I believe.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe Because the point of the Lords is to act as a balance on the Commons and counter-balance the trend towards increasingly dominant Governments in recent years. I know Governments appoint peers - I would rather the process of appointment was done completely independently, or it was simply left as hereditary.

"Radical left-wing governments" can still get their legislation through by invoking the Parliament Act, which asserts the supremacy of the Commons. They either compromise or wait.

[ToaJoe]

@MrToadful Hang on a second. Why is it such a bad thing for the Lords to reflect the commons? Can't you see that the Lords is already like that? A new government comes in, and then swamps the Lords with their own party peers. Another party comes in, and vice versa.

The truth is, the conservatives want an unelected Lords chamber because it is the one thing that would stop a radical left wing government from passing legislation- they know that the country is naturally liberal.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe larger area without party machinery and funding. That will make it even more difficult for independents to get elected than it already is in general elections to the Commons. A Lords elected on PR just allows parties to stick their most loyal, unquestioning members at the top, giving them near-guaranteed election. And under a FPTP constituency system, the Lords would effectively mirror the Commons and parties would still remain dominant.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe I think neither the elderly, committed, hard-working gentlemen we see throughout this video, nor the appointed members who are not political cronies, will want to involve themselves in the grubby world of elections and electioneering. Especially if the Lords elections are held under Party List PR (this is what is proposed in the Coalition Agreement), the parties will be dominant, squeezing out independent candidates because it's hard for them to get support in a (continued in next post.)

[ToaJoe]

@MrToadful The people who are experienced and experts in their area of work will seek election as independant MPs if they want. If they want the peerage enough to accept it from the government, they should seek it from the electorate. There's no reason why the independant lords would side with a particular party. Instead, the two sides of the house could represent political alignment, the more left wing lords could sit on the left and vice versa. That isn't necessarily party politics.

[MrToadful]

@ToaJoe 'Tis a fair point. I supported the previous hereditary system because it meant the greatest independence from party lines, though I would have preferred the party system removed from the Lords entirely. The reason I don't support an elected house is because it will simply get filled with the same party loyalists that we have in the Commons, and we'll lose all the experience of the experts. The type of people who stand for election are often not experienced nor have expertise in anything.