House of lords

Thursday

Alex Massie

Three Cheers for the House of Lords

Everyone, and not without reason, holds the House of Commons in some degree of contempt. This has provoked any number of proposals for reforming the lower house. One simple, if admittedly difficult and controversial, measure, however would be to grant the House of Lords more power, relative to the Commons, than it currently enjoys. It is hard to see what harm this could do, not least since frustrating the Commons ought to be an objective, not a tactic. And then there’s the splendid nature of the Lords, even now that they’ve been denuded of backwoods hereditary peers. Consider this exchange at this week’s edition of Transport Questions. The matter under

Thursday

David Blackburn

Welcome reforms, but they do not provide the complete answer

Baroness Royall has confirmed the Eames inquiry’s recommendation that the House of Lords has its own standards watchdog, following allegations that four Labour peers offered to amend laws for specific companies in return for substantial sums of cash. Whilst this move is welcome, the more pressing issue is how to redress financial strains on members, which tempted corruption originally. Whilst a separate review will examine the options for a system of financial support, current reforms are merely concentrated prescriptions. James Landale revealed today that the amount claimed for overnight accommodation will be reduced, though peers will have to provide claim receipts (for the first time, incredibly). Prescriptions and greater accountability

Thursday

David Blackburn

Ironically, Cameron can only deconstruct the state by manipulating central patronage

If it remains a mystery that, 12 years after describing the House of Lords as an “affront to democracy”, Labour have not attempted wholesale reform, then look no further than the fact that Labour is the largest party in the upper chamber. As Ben Brogan notes, this causes Cameron a problem: ‘For the first time, a Conservative leader faces coming to power with an Upper House that will not reflect the outcome of the election. All those People’s Peers created by Mr Blair have made Labour the biggest party on the red benches, with 213 to the Tories’ 192. Add in 71 Lib Dems, and the unpredictability of 183 crossbenchers,

Alex Massie

David Cameron, his Goats & his Pocket Boroughs

The other day Pete mentioned David Cameron’s desire to bring in outsiders to staff his government ministries, making it a Tory version of Gordon’s so-called Government Of All the Talents. One can see why this must be an appealling notion. You might share it if you were charged with assembling a government from the parliamentary Conservative party. Christ, you might think, they sent me this? Bricks without straw also ran. Now Benedict Brogan says that the Tories are thiking of creating as many as 40 new Conservative peers to stack the House of Lords with reliable Cameron votes. Again, one can see why he would want to do so even

Thursday

David Blackburn

Bercow wants Lords Mandelson and Adonis to be questioned by MPs

Speaker Bercow has suggested that prominent cabinet ministers who sit in the House of Lords should be brought before the backbenchers for scrutiny. The Telegraph’s James Kirkup has the details: ‘Mr Bercow said: “I find the fact that backbenchers have no means of directly questioning prominent Ministers of the Crown because they happen to sit in the House of Lords to be less than satisfactory,” Mr Bercow said. “That is even more true at a time when the Cabinet contains the esteemed Lord Mandelson, whose empire is of a scale not seen since the death of Alexander the Great.” He also highlighted the role of Lord Adonis. “I suspect that

Wednesday

James Forsyth

The benefit of the Lords

I disagree with Helena Kennedy on a whole host of issues, but her speech last night in the Lords debate on assisted suicide was fantastic. Here’s the opening section of it: “Although I am a great believer in individual liberty and in the autonomy of the individual, I also believe strongly in the symbolic nature of law. The laws of a nation say a great deal about who we are and what we value. One of the ways in which cultural shifts take place in a society is by changing law. Many of us who have argued that changes in attitude follow changes in law did so particularly around issues

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson

A welcome rejection of assisted suicide

I’m delighted that Lord Falconer has just failed in his attempt to legalise assisted suicide for people sending friends and relatives to Swiss death clinics. This is a topic which I suspect even CoffeeHousers will be evenly divided on, but to me the whole idea is just wrong – and it goes straight to the heart of how we, as a society, regard the disabled and the elderly. For those who haven’t been following the debate, Falconer used the Coroners and Justice Bill to propose a new law to make it legal to help one’s friends and relatives be killed in the Swiss death clinics. He proposed that any two