People and Parliament Inquiry

Transcript http://www.parliament.uk/transcripts/video/lordrenton.cfm

The House of Lords Information Committee is looking at how the House of Lords can improve public understanding of its work and role, and how people would like to interact with the House of Lords and Parliament.

The People and Parliament Inquiry was open to everyone.

Members of the public were invited to post video responses with their suggestions or to take part in the Committee's web forum. The deadline for submissions has now passed.

You can find out more about the Inquiry at http://www.parliament.uk/hlinfocom
or read the posts we received in our web forum:
http://forums.parliament.uk/people-and-parliament

Category:

People & Blogs

Tags:

• Parliament
• Democracy
• Social
• Media
• Lords
• Inquiry

[mrpol1854]

When making videos like this for the general public, why are there no subtitles and no BSL - so deaf people can take part? Surely in terms of democracy, this should be standard.

[UKParliament]

@mrpol1854, we are working on getting a transcript up asap.

[Darthhawk24]

There are several changes that i would make to Parliament to make it better for the public to understand.

1) The political system, parliament, the electoral system and the general ideologies of the main politcal parties need to be made part of the eductional curriculum from an early age.

2) Bills and laws need to be simplified, for example a series of bullet points on the internet explaining exactly what the bill is going to do

3) MPs need to be more widely known to the public.

[tansrok]

I'm a big fan of the house of Lords. I think it is brilliant that we have a group of people who are experts within various spheres and have done real jobs with real people commenting on policy. I applaud the move to keep the Lords engaged with with the public as they can raise important questions and challenges to the government and have greater time for debate.

I think the House of Lords is an important chamber in the parliamentary system and is effective in its current form.

Good work!

[masonkings01]

You are so right - one way communication, is it a democracy at all? And as to the age issue, maybe if we encouraged younger people to be involved in politics by introducing it into education then people may actually be able to get more involved but as it stands a vast majority of us know very little about what goes on at westminster........

[mgw825]

Currently the Lords is seen as the retirement home for MPs and a way to give 'grace and favour' to party supporters. It's a real pity that the recent Lords 'reform' went nowhere because this enphasises the irrelevance of the Lords.

As the Lords can only delay Bills from the Commons since the 1911 Parliament Act, we have no effective check, just a proof-reader. More transparency and greater understanding are meaningless without the 'other place' actually having a serious legislative role.

[Russell1971]

Hi, Mr. Renton.

In response to your reply here, I understand. You might, though, want to verify such data with Amanda Leck - the official director of Big Ben tours. She told me recently that the main reason why non-UKers are not allowed to tour the clock tower is because of security reasons. That's understandable, considering how big your Muslim population is in Britain. I'm not Muslim, though. I'm a Caucasian and a Christian American.

Anyway, thanks again for your info and take care.

[mbb05jb]

then leading scientists, lawyers judges, industry leaders, community leaders won't have the time to campaign and get elected because they work for a living. these experts go through bills with a tooth comb and and send it back to the commons to be debated. eg the hunting ban, it was sent back to be debated in the commons 3 times, it got made into law, and is unworkable. they do know their stuff.

[mbb05jb]

so you think that georgia gould lass has experience to be a good mp? mps should have a prerequisite of 10 years in the private sector-aka living in the real world, then they might be beneficial as an mp.

[Firesecret]

It is about time that this is being done. Most people I speak to know or care very little about the political world that surrounds them today.