The draft House of Lords reform bill would have it that elected individuals elected to the Lords would only be eligible to serve a single 15 year term. There’s word for that: idiocy.
If we’re going to have an elected second chamber, and frankly that is all but an inevitability in the long term, then why on earth create a term of office that fails to respond adequately to shifts in public mood?
More importantly, if you limit a politician to one term you remove any incentive for them to be mindful of public opinion (and the opinion of their constituents in particular) when they cast their votes in the chamber. What’s more, a single term of 15 years with no accountability (and that’s exactly what it would be) only serves to cocoon those politicians elected to the Lords from the outside world. Politicians should have their fate tied intimately to the opinion of the electorate. Anything else makes a mockery of democracy.
Lords reform? Absolutely. But reform like this? Definitely not.
Comments
Philippa Chapman / June 01 2011 4:41pm
Why not make the Lords similar to Jury duty and available to the same cache of adults under similar terms?
scottspeig / June 01 2011 4:48pm
But isn't the lack of accountability the area that is good for the Lords? I mean that they can base their decisions on the good of the country rather than short sighted movement of the electorate.
Anyway, it is unlikely to get the go ahead unless an Act of Parliament is enacted. Not likely to be a good thing. You will lose all the expertise and we can say goodbye to constitutional Britain. It'll be a sad day - worse than Blair's reforms! Cameron is no conservative and the day he gets removed as PM can't come soon enough.