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These Lords will have to be elected
When reform is absolutely necessary, it must be embraced properly, says Daniel Hannan MEP
Who would want a peerage these days? The cash-for-honours affair has splattered the ermine of even the most guiltless Lords. It is hard to imagine many middle-aged men huddled hopefully around their trees this Christmas hoping for 'a K or a big P'. Santa's is the last fur-trimmed red robe to have escaped unbesmirched.
I don't enjoy pointing this out. I was one of those who saw no need for Lords reform in the first place. "If it is not necessary to change," said the third Viscount Falkland, "it is necessary not to change." Quite.
But when it is necessary to change, reform should be embraced properly. A parliamentary report published on Wednesday accurately recognised the damage caused by cash-for-honours. The trouble is that its recommendations - giving more power to the Electoral Commission and less to the PM - fail to address the essential problem, which is that the current method of elevation rewards the kind of person who should at all costs be kept away from legislative power, vis the busybody who can’t get himself elected to anything.
Small-c conservatives who still trot out the 'if it ain't broke' line should take a closer look at the peers who have been appointed since Labour changed the rules in 2000. Some of them, of course, are qualified and patriotic. But the majority are placemen who have spent their lives in the public sector. They sit on committees. They draw up strategy papers. They liaise with stakeholders. They drive innovation. They spend a surprising amount of time on the Eurostar to Brussels.
And their first instinct, faced with almost any problem, is to spend money. The second chamber, as currently constituted, is the supreme embodiment of the quango state. It is time for direct elections. ·
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I think the House of Lords should be made up of only hereditary Peers. It is true that there would probably be many placemen and shysters among them, but their successors would very naturally comprise all shades of opinion, all manner of backgrounds and be successes or failures or mediocre in their chosen fields. In other words, they would, in time, collectively reflect the people of the nation at large. And with 'nothing to lose', they would, like our Monarch, act responsibly. There will be times of course when the institution, (as with Monarchy), will be at odds with prevailing public opinion - but would this not be better than the present arrangement where the House of Commons made up only of lawyers it seems is no more in touch with the people than in any other dictatorship? (We may live in an elective dictatorship which pays lip-service to democracy, but it is a dictatorship nevertheless). Oh, and the Parliament Act will have to be scrapped.
In the past, wasn't it the custom, that the reigning monarch elevated those who served the state and monarch with admirable and often heroic qualities?
I think, that it is high time that this power be given back to the reigning monarch and that way there will be no question that those who have been elevated are worthy of the House of Lords.
I cannot agree. The House of Commons is elected and look what a shower of useless shysters that has turned out to be. I would far rather see the upper chamber comprising randomly selected voters, each with an IQ in the top decile and of sound mind. Make acceptance compulsory and pay them well. Give them perks. Let it be a lottery win for the individuals concerned - and keep the mainstream political parties away from it all.