Jack Straw’s new proposals for continuing to reform of the House of Lords (just a decade after starting it!) bear an extremely marked similarity to those I have made on this very blog – as far back as 2006!

The difference is that I am far more certain of what we actually need to do. We must rescue British democracy, and the best way to do that is to reform the Lords to make it democratic and effective – rather than neither, as it is now.

Elected Lords

We should, as Straw says, select the members of the Upper House every general election, on a rolling basis – a third every general election. Lords would then serve a term of up to 15 years, depending on the length of time between general elections.

This would then ensure that the Lords would be relatively clear of narrow party political politiking, as no one party is likely to be able to control the entire Chamber – plus, since they can’t be deselected, there is relatively little force that can be brought to bear on them by the party leadership.

However, there should also be some means by which others can be appointed to the Lords – such as experts and crossbenchers. And the occasional minister. But any such appointed Lords should only be able to speak, not vote.

Making every single vote count

One area where Straw seems particuarly vague (not that any of it is exactly crystal clear) is how the new-look Lords should be elected. All he suggests is that “each member elected to the Lords would represent large constituencies, and that there might be potential for using a system of proportional representation”.

The Lords is the second chamber and should be properly representative of the country – and so should be elected by PR. If this was then based on the national general elections, no one party would ever have control of the Lords. I’m not a fan of PR for anything else because it removes effective government, but in the Lords it should ensure that common sense rather than tribal politics prevails.

Conclusion

Of course, I don’t object to Jack Straw copying me – it’s all to the good, as it is the best way to go. But I just wish he’d do it properly and take all of it, rather than the half-way house he appears to only be willing to commit to!