Lords reform : MPs to vote on elected Peers to House of Lords

Never-mind the froth here's the substance of what's going on -

Parliament is to vote on the introduction of directly-elected peers to the House of Lords, after Cabinet ministers gave their approval to a White Paper setting out proposals for further reform of the Upper House.

Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman confirmed that MPs - including Government ministers - will be given a free vote on how many members of the new "hybrid" second chamber they believe should be elected and how many appointed.

www.guardian.co.uk...

- Once again this Labour Government takes practical and concrete steps to extend democracy and public accountability into the parts of the machinery of our Government where, until they acted, little or none existed before.

Once again (and contrary to all the spin) a Labour Government acting like a Labour Government, fighting unearned privilege in the British 'body politic' and empowering the people.

I hope this goes ahead, and I hope they split it 85 elected 15% unelected - the unelected 15% should be offered to retired Prime Ministers, Speakers of the House of Commons, distinguished MPs and so on. The remainder should be fully elected independent (IE: No party politics in the Lords so it can remain as the neutral reviewing chamber) persons.

Why change?

This has been good enough for the last several hundred years and is part of the checks and balances.

And how do you reward those who deserve a peerage. I like the idea of a life peerage as a reward to those who have serviced the community.

And how can we ensure that those in the upper house remain independent (I know about cross benchers) I think this is an excellent idea if it can be policed.

And how are the independent members of a second chamber going to fund their election if not part of a party?

Why bother with a huge election campaign? That's the point. There's a big row over party funding anyway.

This reform could genuinely allow 'normal' people into Parliament - not people who have been selected by a party. Instead of a massive publicity campaign they could be elected on the back of their services to local communities... IE: People have met them and seen them at work and vote for them on that as opposed to some manifesto commitments and helped along by a huge party machine.

If anything, this would help the purpose of the House of Lords - basically, expand cross benchers and make them mostly elected. Remember, the House of Lords is supposed to review and reflect on legislation... I think this could be better achieved by people not having to be forced to vote for or against a piece of legislation because of what their party tells them.

It has served its purpose, yes, and has done so remarkably well. In fact, I'd say there are more urgent issues for the government to deal with than House of Lords reform (if they said "We'll sort some other issues out before we do anything with the Lords" I wouldn't complain) but this is a chance to make politics more open and bring power closer to the public at large.

Interesting ideas Ste2652.

The current House of Lords is not based on peers representing an area, if people are to be elected, who will they be elected by and how would they be elected.

I like the idea of electing local people who have done good works, but would they represent an area?