I find it odd that for most of my life, I have often felt like the unelected house was the one protecting democratic and human rights. From ID cards, to detention without trial laws, to right to protest, rule of law on brexit etc. Perhaps the fact that the last bastion against lots of these things is a bunch of unelected 70 year old (mostly) men, says something more fundamental about the shortcomings of the Commons than anything else.
@@alphamikeomega5728that doesn't solve the problem. The commons are the very definition of demagoguery. Having an advisory body appointed based on non-political grounds get you the best of both worlds.
@alphamikeomega5728 I hate to say it, but the tories were at their worst during both their coalition with the Liberal Democrats and the DUP. Additionally the collapse of the governments in both Germany and France should act as a cautionary tale.
The primary issue here is the total lack of checks and balances with separation powers. Its just happens the unelected branch is what protects (or speed bumps) the tyranny of the commons. Ie 51% of common seats effectively gives 100% of national power. Compared to the USA 51% of House seats only gives a fraction of national power.
It should be heavily reformed. I don’t want a second elected house, as you just end up with what the US has where nothing gets done because one house almost always blocks the other. Equally I don’t want 900 full of old MPs who have been essentially bribed with a job for life for their political loyalty. Keep it’s power the same, as a revising chamber, however make it fully technocratic, fill it with qualified soldiers, teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges, business men, trade unionist etc. people who are experts in their field and so can effectively analyse bills from every position and how it would effect the country.
Honestly that sounds better than most ways I've thought of. Might make scientifically sound legislation easier too on Climate issues without political nonsense around it.
the only reason nothing gets done in the USA is because of other stupid technicalities and they base their laws on archaic traditions written in the constitution by slave owners.
Companies can then just bribe them for their own benefit. I find that these experts are not 100% selfless. They can be arrogant and only look out for themselves and what they think is best.
It would've been better if the pm had no power to appoint people in the lords, those men and womens entire legacy (and money) are based on how well they do in the house of lords
The House of Lords need reform, not replacement. The most important step is to ban Prime Minister from appointing dozens of their cronies into Peerages, as well as gutting all the Peers that arrive in the House because of it, unless there is evidence that they have proven their worth. If both Houses are elected then the House of Commons has no mandate as the voice of the people and thus loses its supremacy.
@@stuartd9741trust me... it's not. Starmer may have won a major ( but shallow ) victory, but that doesn't mean the majority of the country like it. He won with only a third of the vote on a turnout of less than 60%, and most sources I've looked it, when looking at the overall population who can vote in elections, this puts the total of the country who voted for Labour at roughly 20%... and yet they got over 60% of the seats in Parliament? Yes, very democratic.
@brendenwright7957 But talking about the commons is a different debate. This debate is about the Lord's As you bring up this subject. Reform got as many votes as the Liberal Democrats but nowhere near as many seats. .. Tories won the 19 election on 36% of the voting public.? But also we have to consider NPCs - people who didn't or won't/not interested in politics who didn't partake. So we only have representation from those that DO vote. .. We can't count the % of the population who didn't vote at all.
We need more checks and balances not fewer! It would be better to reform the House of Lords to be more independent of the Commons. Reduce the size of the packed House by removing PM appointments would be a good start.
Replacing the House of Lords with another check would likely be better. As it stands, it's not really independent and it's a symbol of extremely outdated class division.
The problem is that TLDR are in the tank for Labour so if course they want to remove impediments for their plans. If the Tories were in charge they'd want it back.
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Having a second 'checkpoint' to stop the majority from imposing undemocratic laws is very important I think, however some reform would be good to keep the costs of running it down...
yeah, sure, a group made up of lifetime appointments ostensibly by the current monarch, but by the prime minister is definitely the democratic backstop to the **checks notes** democratically elected representatives lmao
Yes, second checkpoint is a great advantage of the Lords. But sadly, it has been lately used as a gravy train for political parties. I'm sure the Lords could be replaced with a law, such as 'no whipping possible' of MP's, if the proposed law was not in the manifesto. And also suspending the MP, if they voted against the law outside of their manifesto.
the tories wanted to reform the house of lords because they didnt like that labour had stacked it in their favour by 2010. however, now that the tories have ekected their own peers, they all of a sudden dont want a house of lords reform. what a bloody joke....
Look at how Canada reformed the Senate, which functions much like the house of lords. Senators are appointed, not politically, but by a nonpartisan body, much like judges, out of the civil society. They are also bamned from formally affiliating with any parliamentary political parties, so they may be ideologically aligned with one or another party in parliament, but they are at arm's length and have less of a vested interest in the success of those parties. This has many of the benefits you listed, without the politicization of appointments, and follows the broad tenet that representative democracy ought to be balanced by long-serving experts concerned with the rule of law and the survival of the principles that make that democracy possible, without overstepping into rule.
Also deals with the issue of appointments based on political favours: Senators are now selected based on the significance of their careers. It's merit-based.
Yes the Canadian Senate is a good example we ought to follow. I would like to keep the title House of Lords and the peerage system though. The original nobles were appointed based on their merit of service to the king, often military. We would go back to our roots with continuity instead of making up some new alien system.
I’m Canadian the senate being nonpartisan is a myth the senators Trudeau appoints are liberal senators they just don’t call them liberals same with conservatives when elected under Harper.
As a former Labour voter. I believe Labour should prioritise reforming the election system and bring in proportional representation before looking at the Lords. Yes the Lords need reform but don't have as big an impact on our lives as the government.
I used to believe in the Lords and it's idiosyncrasies until Johnson put the son of a Russian spy and a pretty girl into the Lords for no apparent reason.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The upper House has been abused for political gain by the PM and Commoms. It needs to be restored to independence by removing all the political appointees!
No. The UK needs a radical reform of the Lords to make it the house of educated knowledgeable review. It needs to be made up of experts - in law, trade, education, farming, health, military, and as an atheist much as I’m loath to say it religion. (And numerous other things I’ve neglected to mention but would probably realise were vital if I gave this several hours of thought) It needs to be a house that can review legislation without political bias and say “This legislation has these knock on consequences - are you really sure you don’t want to amend it?” The current system of peerages is horribly broken but the Lords could and should be useful if reformed.
The main problem is that PMs over the century has packed the upper House with political favorites to push through their bills. Bloating the House and making it ineffective in balancing againt the Commons.
I would add in representatives from significant minority groups, as they might be particularly affected by a particular piece of legislation in a way that others might not realise or respect. The HoLs also needs some form of accountability, including a system to remove ineffective lords. I think each field should have some internal system of elections (for example, perhaps each union could elect their representative).
Labour tends to make changes for change sake. The Lords plays an important role and they keep screwing with it. They never should have touched the hereditary Lords, especially as they tend to be the better members. It's the Life Peers that need reforming. They should be selected in the same way judges are, in an apolitical fashion. Upper houses are vitally important and they are not supposed to be elected.
The start of this academic year is was quite opposed to the lords. Through learning about it in my A level politics class its grown on me. It works surprisingly well and has done many great things, even with its limited powers. It still doesnt sit right with me that its unelected but there needs to be a way of preserving our current system whilst also allowing it to be more representative. I believe its one of the best functioning 2nd houses in the world
The trouble with elections is that they're ultimately a popularity contest - no more relevant to someone's ability to do a good job in the Lords than if you appointed members based on their performance in a poetry contest.
Democracy is overated, the House of Lords should stay, the only reform it needs is to ensure that each member is an expert in a certain field, that way they ensure everyone is capable of contributing
The problem isn't so much that the upper house is unelected as that the lower house isn't proportional. So long as we have FPTP, MPs representing a minority of voters will keep proposing and passing unpopular legislation.
A proportional system would backfire. Pure proportional = MPs have no accountability to a local constituency and no reason to take up local issues. It also provides no guardrail against demagogues or runaway populist movements running roughshod over human rights or rule of law. You'd basically end up with a parliament comprised entirely of London elites only chosen for party loyalty, not because they're popular and electable in the local area they're representing.
Ironically the less "democratic" the lord's is the better. Its obviously broken now its filled with political appointees, but had it not been messed with so much it would've been a sensible counterbalance
Have a house made of 50% experts at the top of different academic fields to 5 year terms and 50% as a people's assembly, two year terms like jury duty. Make it well paid to persuade people to say yes to it. They should have no power to initiate legislation, but 60% required to veto legislation set by the commons.
Use Proportional Representation to let each party have a certain number of Lords in the upper house. That way PR would act as a great counterbalance to the first-past-the post commons
I say this as an American to the Brits, please don't support your government's aspiration of getting rid of the hereditary peers. What's the difference between a hereditary peer and a political appointee if both simply sit for life? An elected second chamber like the US Senate will only create more partisan gridlock, especially if there is a case of divided government. Instead here are some reforms I personally believe might help: 1. Limitation to tenure - No Lord should be allowed to serve more than a fixed term of 12-18 years. Also put a limit to the age at around 75. You don't want a gerontocratic upper chamber of parliament that is out of touch with the population like ours. 2. Nonpartisan membership - Upon appointment to the Lords, a member should remain unaffiliated with a political party during their tenure. This will help in scrutinizing bills and will also stop Cabinet Ministers coming from the Lords like David Cameron becoming Foreign Secretary. 3. Power of jury - Allow the upper chamber to exercise power by summoning government ministers and asking them to testify their actions. This is something the US Senate does with our Cabinet Secretaries and will allow the Lords to hold government ministers accountable. With the scandals that have plagued both the tory and labour governments in recent years, the public's frustration is justified, but there is no body holding those ministers to account. This power might allow them to do just that. 4. Appointments to the Lords to be reviewed by a nonpartisan committee - Instead of allowing the Prime Minister to solely appoint anyone, set up a non-partisan committee, representing not only MPs from each party, but also common folk like teacher, soldiers, doctors, and farmers. Give this committee the power to review appointments suggested by the Prime Minister and have them vote to approve the nomination or reject it.
It should be *changed*. If it remains, then it should stay on as a technocratic advisory chamber - no hereditary peers, no clergy, no political appointments, and certainly no using it as a reward for your cronies. Appointments should be made solely on the basis of merit or expertise in a field, and if possible, made by an independent body. Alternatively, make it an elected upper chamber with proportional representation.
@ericajohnson3504 An age limit, certainly, but I think for an advisory chamber - especially if it's intended to be expertise-led - longevity can be useful. I'd say 20 years, or up to around 75. And if we're talking a proportionally elected chamber for regional representatives, then I'd say that to keep the same longevity and limit short-term thinking, terms should be more like 7-10 years.
@@josephharrison8354 good point, just know that by 75 mental abilities are generally failing and people start getting tired. So no over 75's and as you say a longer term if elected, longer than the 5 years for the Commons might be a good balance. But for appointments then under 20 years. If they are in the advisory chamber for 20 years they are by the middle to end of that period very removed from their experience, if not out of touch completely as things move on very quickly now.
Honestly having a panel of a bunch of experts to go over legislation and kick it back with notes reading "if you do this shit the economy crashes" is something we need in the US
Replace the Senate with that. The US Senate is a ridiculously undemocratic institution despite being elected, it basically allows for minority rule and actively encourages smaller states to shrink their populations further. The entire strategy of the Republican party at this point is to make life as miserable as possible for liberals/minorities in red states so those people all cram into the west coast and northeast and allowing the Republicans to take more senate seats, gerrymander their way into house majorities and exploit the electoral college to hold the presidency so they can maintain minority rule.
you're so right bestie, the power should instead be in the hands of unelected super minority class elites who were put there by previous members of the house of commons
@@gamerboyx8243 That didn't stop them from destroying the country. The Lords would be in better shape if the Commons didn't fiddle with it. This is a terrible self decision.
Abolishing, rather than reforming, the Lords will only give the government more power and it will have less scrutiny over the bills it passes. The power of the legislative would also be diminished as they won't have a second chance to reconsider bills. This alone is a bad thing.
As an Anglophile American, my understanding is that while people want to reform the House of Lords, where the line is drawn on said reforms is that people do not want to turn the chamber into a second House of Commons.
It would be interesting to see a video focusing on the result of abolishing the House of Lords. What would the British government look like if the House of Commons was the only house in parliament?
@@graveperil2169That is not the case. There are many democratic Western countries with one house that function fine. There is still a body in place in each of them to scrutinise laws before they go into effect.
Well, consider that in 4.5 years, there will likely be a Reform/Tory government hellbent on leaving the ECHR, trampling on traditional British rights, socialising losses, and privatising profits. Given that the old, apparently lazy, and unelected guys have so far been much better at protecting freedoms than Parliament, we might miss them a lot in 4.5 years if they are no longer there.
Maybe Starmer will get the point and take a populist pivot in those 4.5 years before we end up with Farage as PM. There needs to be a progressive populist counter to the rising Fascism on the right and it needs to be someone other than the virulently anti-semitic and identity politics obsessed Corbyn. The people are done with the status quo, Starmer will just usher in Fascism if he doesn't do something other than kick the can down the road.
The criticisms articulated by people are always that they wear red twice a year, aren't elected (like many upper houses), and a couple of the appointments weren't popular. If every government institution was this hard to criticise we'd be in a much better place. They aren't supposed to show up on every issue since many are appointed for knowledge in a specific field and they cost very little as far as legislators in developed countries go
I think it would be a good follow-up on this video to explain some of the suggested and most popular options for reform and what the pros/cons would be of these systems
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I think the last point of the video is a very important and overlooked one - by being unelected, the Lords don't have to worry about being voted out and can therefore theoretically make decisions which are genuinely in the country's best interests, as opposed to the PM and MPs who make decisions which are also biased towards keeping their party in power. I do think the Lords needs reform, but I also think its role is important in moderating parlimentary decisions.
Speaking as an American who's seen the degradation of the Supreme Court, an unelected body with lifetime appointments, those sorts of appointments are not free from bias and politics
@@gentlemandemon why I would agree with some of what you’re saying there I would say that is more of a problem that the Supreme Court has we too much power for how it is elected
“The House of Lords is needed to prevent undemocratic legislation from passing” In a real country this is done through a written constitution and a judicial branch.
Russia has a written constitution and judicial system but Vladimir Putin still has full authority, Iran has written constitution and judicial branch but still has a dictatorship under Ali Khamenei.
@@samsoncooper1funny funny how you immediately bring america as if america is the only country with a strong judicial branch and a written constitution lmao
@@goldenfiberwheat238 I mean it is funny, has he not got a point? Plus, considering recent developments it has become clear that America's judicial branch isn't very strong at all.
I think having one chamber full of MPs representing equal areas of land and another equally powerful chamber of MPs representing areas of equal population sounds quite fair, but first FPTP must be banned.
What about making the Lords like the Senate in the Netherlands or Bundesrat in Germany? Regional authorities, elected by people, appoints some quota of senators as representatives of regional authorities. Minimum age is 30‐40 years old, maximum age is 70 years old. One term is 6 years. For more integrity, at the end of the term residents of the region vote yes or no for their re-appointment. If voter turnout is more than 50% and "No" gets more than 50%, regional authorities will have not to re-appoint this representative and it will have to replace him.
There’s a quirk in the Lords that allows the appointment of a member as PM, which apart from an unelected PM could also see the Archbishop or Prince Harry at No10.
It’s not a quirk - lots of Prime Ministers have come from the Lords. Harry could not become PM because the right for the immediate royal family to sit in the House of Lords was removed in 1999. Obviously an Archbishop could potentially become pm but that’s highly unlikely.
You know what, because so many people want Proportional representation but that would cause a lot of chaos, it would make sense in the second chamber was made of people from different parties based off their % of votes.
I used to think that, then I done some research and saw how many laws they have blocked that would have further eroded our freedom. It's because they have done nothing making them worthy of that position that, some of them at least, don't want/need more money and power and genuinely try to do the right thing, in there opinion, instead of this theater we get with our elected politicians lying and cheating to try to gain and keep power.
The House of Lords shouldn’t be abolished by instead strengthened by eliminating all the political picks, keeping the lords (obviously) but putting in representatives from various aspect of Britain society outside the gov. influence. For example a representative/s from farmers, artisans, entrepreneurs, fishermen, food industry workers and owners, exporters, tech workers and so on (maybe every representative or association will have a minimum membership for it to be recognised ) and they would serve for 10 years (or more) to assure continuity. Their objective would be primarily to make sure that the future of Britain wouldn’t be sacrificed for some immediate political gain by any party. Some sensible laws like military budget, debt or public cuts may have a bigger majority to achieve to let it go through (like 60% instead of 52%). The House of Lords would be transformed into a neo Roman senate.
Let's see ... "unelected" and "for life." Yeah. What could go wrong? Sheesh. Even asking this question is pathetic. As an American, it's unbelievable that England is still living in the 18th century.
It would be if they had real power. As they are, they can slam the brakes on new legislation for a while and make suggestions to change obviously terrible ideas. Having people who do that as a lifelong job does make sense as they have decades of experience in the system and less of a political incentive to rush through botched laws for easy votes.
@@someguy3766 people romanticise elected officials o much. They are more interested in getting elected next term than long term goals. Having life-peer makes them more independent of election cycles.
@@baselius662 Independent to do whatever they want, with no regard at all to how their actions affect anyone other than themselves. Accountability is not a bad thing for people who have power over other people.
@@wassholm Which is why they do NOT have power. All they can do is delay and scrutinise legislation, the Commons actually get to make the law. They serve a useful role as a sort of wise old uncle telling the young leader to consider his decisions more carefully. And compared to the Commons, the Lords is actually full of a lot of people with real expertise in all sorts of stuff. Doctors, engineers, businessmen, scientists, professors etc. They often have a much better understanding of the technical implications of various laws as well as an interest in seeing such laws implemented in sensible ways. It is the Commons that is mostly full of people solely motivated by getting votes and making laws that benefit them and their mates.
I think it's really odd that the Gamons who complained the most about unelected people in brussels seem to be the keenest on the Lords and the monarch.
Not at all. I'm all for retiring the monarchy - an outdated medieval throwback. .. I think the real issue with the upper chamber, is the size, and political nominations unnecessarily cluttering up the system..
Why not look back 3 years to see which lords have never attended or have never spoken?. We could probably get rid of them without losing anything. Let them keep their titles if you like. Just not their seats.
If you make it a requirement, all that will happen is that they'll just stand up and say something stupid so that it's recorded that they said something; continuing to game the system.
I know I might be in the minority here, but I think the comments made a mistake in the 90s by limiting the House of Lords to only 92 hereditary Lords, what I think they should’ve done is let all the hereditary peers stay but say only a percentage of them can vote each vote so it’s not always the same people voting
That’s true however generally in the UK House of Lords they are much less politically aligned than their House of Commons counterpart. Conservatives voted against conservative governments countless times and vice Verza
@graveperil2169 But free-thinking atheists and non-conformists do not get a voice just because they don't have an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Doesn't make sense to me
Considering the house of lords have stopped some terrible versions of bills getting through to royal ascent and told the commons to amend it. Id rather they stay
As brutal as it sounds, democracy should not have primacy over competent and benevolent rule. The house of lords is an example of undemocratic competence, shielding us from many excesses of state expansion and incursions into personal liberty. It is a sad fact that although the aristocracy produce self-serving policies, they are also the class who produced John Stewart Mill and the foundations of liberal democracy that we all enjoy.
1/ There are far too many in the House of Lords. Cut the numbers by half. 2/ Do away with the hereditary seats. 3/ Do away with political appointments 4/ We do not want another load of career politicians. 5/ We do need members who know how the big world outside works. 6/ Expand the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission. Apart from that I do not really know of a solution that will please everyone, but the above points would be a good start.
My suggested reform: - reduce number of lords - have a maximum term for lords, but make that term fairly long (e.g. 10, 20 years) - appoint lords in batches, and use a proportional representation referendum to select lords
The Lords need reform, most essentially to remove the capacity for Lords to be made as political appointments by the ruling party. They should be put back entirely under the guidance and appointment of the Monarchy.
Bringing back Hereditary Peers would make the House of Lords more non-partisan and professional, as they learn how to do their job from their predecessors. They arent beholden to political parties like the Peers handpicked by PM
It's not that difficult. 1) Make it so the memberships is half the size of the commons 2) That they are reappointed every full term (so five years) 3) If you have ever been elected locally, regionally, state or union your barred
Lords having a longer-term view is an important strength, but it's one we could still have in a democratic system. Say we create 200 constituencies. Each constituency gets 4 lords to sit in the House. We hold a House of Lords election every 5 years where each constituency elects 1 lord for a period of 20 years. We therefore get 800 Lords, all of whom get to sit for 20 years, but are staggered at 5 year intervals. Or, if 800 is too many, have 2 lords per constituency and a vote every 10 years.
No, we should reform, but not abolish. If you abolish, the government of the day will have carte Blanche to bring in legislation with no checks or challenges.
You don't have to abolish it, just limit their numbers to like about 200 to 300, and there must be a compulsory retirement age for members (about 70-80 y.o.).
@@baselius662You can enact other forms of checks and balances on systems with one legislature. Have a look into countries that have unicameral systems.
The House of Lords should definitely not be abolished it’s a piece of our history but it should be reformed. I believe that the only people who should be in the house are the hereditary peers the ones that actual come from aristocratic families who actual inherit the title of lord and have historical titles with royalty. Peerages for people from political parties should be scrapped in favour of tradition like what we’ve had for centuries. The way to reform The House of Lords would be to just simply remove everyone who has become a peer through peerages.
The house of form needs reform not abolishion. The fact the house is unelected is not some the smoking gun indicating that something is inherently wrong or bad. The unelected house is incredibly useful for our democracy, however, these scroungers who turn up and contribute nothing need to go immediately. In fact I’d rather the hereditary peers stay instead of people who don’t contribute
I'm not from the UK, but I think a unicameral legislature in the Parliament promotes enactment of hastly and poorly studied policies and laws. Instead of abolishing the House of Lords, maybe just reducing it's membership. Instead of being appointed for life, why just reduce it to 10 years, where another apointment takes place every 10 years. Since the Monarchy enjoys some degree of confidence from its subjects, why not the Monarch makes the appointments where the Parliament may nominate an individual to the chamber. The Monarch should be able to reject such nominations if the Monarch deems an individual not fit to be a member of the House of Lords. Likewise, to check and balance the House of Lords, the Monarch shall be able to suspend or remove a member of the House of Lords. Electing the members of House of Lords can't help as well given the behavior of politicians in the House of Commons -- the House of Lords will be just a House of Commons 2.0.
It’s already been abolished and replaced with old MPs, yes the Common people, and those Party donors. Getting closer to a Republic and total control by whomever is pulling the levers…
I think the House of Lords should exist but reformed to reduce the politicisation and cost. Reduce the numbers, eliminate political appointments and focus purely on bringing the expertise to the scrutiny of legislation. If we relly wanted to amp it up, we could institute a mandatory retirement age or a tenure length (15-20 years).
We shouldnt have "overpaid" lords hand picked by Prime Ministers, I've seen them do good work, but that seems like something normal people could also do, maybe picked from a variety of professionals in a variety of fields.
Saying they are overpaid is ridiculous. Their pay should probably be increased 10 times, but anti-bribery laws increased 10 times, so they would be in constant fear that their next action is going to get them arrested for bribery charges.
I have not watched the video when I'm writing this, but the answer is yes. Having unelected parliamentarians is fundamentally undemocratic (which of course is fitting, since the UK is not a democracy), and should not be acceptable anywhere. Also having a system that explicitly suggest that some people are "Lords" and some are "Commons" should be an insult to all people.
As an american I frequently ask "why hasn't this institution been reformed yet!" I mean I get the patriotic reasons for keeping the Monarchy (and it really isn't that much money to keep going), but the House of Lords is Anit-Democratic.
Replace all the lords with people who are selected by the peers select committee each lord aproved, rejected and removed from the house by refuredums. This keeps them as experts appointed for their insights and keeps them from electoral politics while also making them accountable to the public.
I’m American and yes, my government is useless but when I hear about British government, all I hear is just wasted dollars I would be livid if I lived there
It’s interesting because Lords are meant to stop corruption but then the PM can hire whoever they want, which means they could just hire their mates I hate to say it but I think they either need a major reform or to begone forever
I have long had an idea of how it could be reformed. Keep the Cross-Benchers as is. Divide it into Numerary and Supernumerary Peers Numerary Peers -appointed by the amount of the vote their party got at the last election (either 1 lord per 1% of the vote or one lord per 100,000 national votes) If the number of lords a party has goes over their allocation the excess become supernumerary. If they don't have enough they can appoint new ones, following the current checks by the apointments commitee. If the electorate swing back then the supernumararies return to being numerary Supernumarires - Either wait to become numeraries again, or can be invited by a commitee to serve there so their expertise can still be used. They already had a weird internal election system to choose which hereditary peers got to be sitting members so that can be extended so the already appointed peers choose their collegues. This adds in a democratic element as far as the political peers are concerned. It also prevents parties gaining leverage over their lords keeping them as they are in terms of independance .
I find it odd that for most of my life, I have often felt like the unelected house was the one protecting democratic and human rights. From ID cards, to detention without trial laws, to right to protest, rule of law on brexit etc. Perhaps the fact that the last bastion against lots of these things is a bunch of unelected 70 year old (mostly) men, says something more fundamental about the shortcomings of the Commons than anything else.
Proportional representation would help: FPTP means that MPs representing a minority of the electorate have all the power in the Commons.
@@alphamikeomega5728that doesn't solve the problem. The commons are the very definition of demagoguery. Having an advisory body appointed based on non-political grounds get you the best of both worlds.
Very interesting point.
@alphamikeomega5728 I hate to say it, but the tories were at their worst during both their coalition with the Liberal Democrats and the DUP. Additionally the collapse of the governments in both Germany and France should act as a cautionary tale.
The primary issue here is the total lack of checks and balances with separation powers. Its just happens the unelected branch is what protects (or speed bumps) the tyranny of the commons.
Ie 51% of common seats effectively gives 100% of national power.
Compared to the USA 51% of House seats only gives a fraction of national power.
It should be heavily reformed. I don’t want a second elected house, as you just end up with what the US has where nothing gets done because one house almost always blocks the other. Equally I don’t want 900 full of old MPs who have been essentially bribed with a job for life for their political loyalty. Keep it’s power the same, as a revising chamber, however make it fully technocratic, fill it with qualified soldiers, teachers, doctors, nurses, lawyers, judges, business men, trade unionist etc. people who are experts in their field and so can effectively analyse bills from every position and how it would effect the country.
Honestly that sounds better than most ways I've thought of. Might make scientifically sound legislation easier too on Climate issues without political nonsense around it.
the only reason nothing gets done in the USA is because of other stupid technicalities and they base their laws on archaic traditions written in the constitution by slave owners.
Yes exactly, so glad that many people here are talking sense
I don't see how you can establish a technocratic body without running into the same bribery problem that the house of commons runs into
Companies can then just bribe them for their own benefit.
I find that these experts are not 100% selfless. They can be arrogant and only look out for themselves and what they think is best.
It would've been better if the pm had no power to appoint people in the lords, those men and womens entire legacy (and money) are based on how well they do in the house of lords
Exactly!
Performance related pay...
@stuartd9741 their current system is meant to be this, but performance is subjective whereas attendance is objective
how on earth would you measure that🤣
The House of Lords need reform, not replacement. The most important step is to ban Prime Minister from appointing dozens of their cronies into Peerages, as well as gutting all the Peers that arrive in the House because of it, unless there is evidence that they have proven their worth. If both Houses are elected then the House of Commons has no mandate as the voice of the people and thus loses its supremacy.
I'm not sure
The commons is the voice of the people Anymore..
@@stuartd9741trust me... it's not.
Starmer may have won a major ( but shallow ) victory, but that doesn't mean the majority of the country like it.
He won with only a third of the vote on a turnout of less than 60%, and most sources I've looked it, when looking at the overall population who can vote in elections, this puts the total of the country who voted for Labour at roughly 20%... and yet they got over 60% of the seats in Parliament?
Yes, very democratic.
Tony Blair already reformed the Lords, that's why it's full of hand picked functionaries now
Maybe it's better to stop PMs from doing cronyism stuff?
@brendenwright7957
But talking about the commons is a different debate.
This debate is about the Lord's
As you bring up this subject.
Reform got as many votes as the Liberal Democrats but nowhere near as many seats.
.. Tories won the 19 election on 36% of the voting public.?
But also we have to consider NPCs - people who didn't or won't/not interested in politics who didn't partake.
So we only have representation from those that DO vote.
..
We can't count the % of the population who didn't vote at all.
We need more checks and balances not fewer! It would be better to reform the House of Lords to be more independent of the Commons. Reduce the size of the packed House by removing PM appointments would be a good start.
Replacing the House of Lords with another check would likely be better. As it stands, it's not really independent and it's a symbol of extremely outdated class division.
@@Talisguy you want to go down the US route and have an unproductive powerful body like US Senate
The problem is that TLDR are in the tank for Labour so if course they want to remove impediments for their plans.
If the Tories were in charge they'd want it back.
@@SaintGerbilUK Want to share some data and analystics there buddy to prove the thinking?
@@D.DucktarDon't be lazy.
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Having a second 'checkpoint' to stop the majority from imposing undemocratic laws is very important I think, however some reform would be good to keep the costs of running it down...
But that "checkpoint" is the undemocratic part though
Nothing keeps power in check than a bunch of lords put in through bloodlines and appointments for life by corrupt politicians.
@@WestliFerZulno it isn’t it’s technocratic
yeah, sure, a group made up of lifetime appointments ostensibly by the current monarch, but by the prime minister is definitely the democratic backstop to the **checks notes** democratically elected representatives lmao
Yes, second checkpoint is a great advantage of the Lords. But sadly, it has been lately used as a gravy train for political parties. I'm sure the Lords could be replaced with a law, such as 'no whipping possible' of MP's, if the proposed law was not in the manifesto. And also suspending the MP, if they voted against the law outside of their manifesto.
the tories wanted to reform the house of lords because they didnt like that labour had stacked it in their favour by 2010. however, now that the tories have ekected their own peers, they all of a sudden dont want a house of lords reform. what a bloody joke....
Each party has manipulated the HOLs for there own ends.
Look at how Canada reformed the Senate, which functions much like the house of lords. Senators are appointed, not politically, but by a nonpartisan body, much like judges, out of the civil society. They are also bamned from formally affiliating with any parliamentary political parties, so they may be ideologically aligned with one or another party in parliament, but they are at arm's length and have less of a vested interest in the success of those parties. This has many of the benefits you listed, without the politicization of appointments, and follows the broad tenet that representative democracy ought to be balanced by long-serving experts concerned with the rule of law and the survival of the principles that make that democracy possible, without overstepping into rule.
Also deals with the issue of appointments based on political favours: Senators are now selected based on the significance of their careers. It's merit-based.
Yes the Canadian Senate is a good example we ought to follow. I would like to keep the title House of Lords and the peerage system though. The original nobles were appointed based on their merit of service to the king, often military. We would go back to our roots with continuity instead of making up some new alien system.
The Canadian Senate is full of ex politicians. Not exactly a hotbed of politically independent appointments. It also seems to be largely ineffective.
The Non partisan board is selected by the PM. It's incredibly partisan
I’m Canadian the senate being nonpartisan is a myth the senators Trudeau appoints are liberal senators they just don’t call them liberals same with conservatives when elected under Harper.
As a former Labour voter. I believe Labour should prioritise reforming the election system and bring in proportional representation before looking at the Lords. Yes the Lords need reform but don't have as big an impact on our lives as the government.
I used to believe in the Lords and it's idiosyncrasies until Johnson put the son of a Russian spy and a pretty girl into the Lords for no apparent reason.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. The upper House has been abused for political gain by the PM and Commoms. It needs to be restored to independence by removing all the political appointees!
I think it´s a case of democracy being the least worst system rather than the best.
And now, potentially, Sadiq Khan 😂
@@fujivatothere’s a difference between being knighted than put in the lords
Also at least Sadiq khan is elected and not a Russian spy
@ that’s a good point, I was conflating the two 😅
No.
The UK needs a radical reform of the Lords to make it the house of educated knowledgeable review.
It needs to be made up of experts - in law, trade, education, farming, health, military, and as an atheist much as I’m loath to say it religion. (And numerous other things I’ve neglected to mention but would probably realise were vital if I gave this several hours of thought)
It needs to be a house that can review legislation without political bias and say “This legislation has these knock on consequences - are you really sure you don’t want to amend it?”
The current system of peerages is horribly broken but the Lords could and should be useful if reformed.
The main problem is that PMs over the century has packed the upper House with political favorites to push through their bills. Bloating the House and making it ineffective in balancing againt the Commons.
People are sick and tired of supposed "experts", do you want more covid lockdowns?
We need to review the office of Prime Minister.
@@baselius662🎯
I would add in representatives from significant minority groups, as they might be particularly affected by a particular piece of legislation in a way that others might not realise or respect. The HoLs also needs some form of accountability, including a system to remove ineffective lords. I think each field should have some internal system of elections (for example, perhaps each union could elect their representative).
Labour tends to make changes for change sake. The Lords plays an important role and they keep screwing with it. They never should have touched the hereditary Lords, especially as they tend to be the better members. It's the Life Peers that need reforming. They should be selected in the same way judges are, in an apolitical fashion. Upper houses are vitally important and they are not supposed to be elected.
The start of this academic year is was quite opposed to the lords. Through learning about it in my A level politics class its grown on me. It works surprisingly well and has done many great things, even with its limited powers. It still doesnt sit right with me that its unelected but there needs to be a way of preserving our current system whilst also allowing it to be more representative. I believe its one of the best functioning 2nd houses in the world
Although I agree the HOL w works to a degree, it does need modernising.
And the members are not representative of the population..
The trouble with elections is that they're ultimately a popularity contest - no more relevant to someone's ability to do a good job in the Lords than if you appointed members based on their performance in a poetry contest.
But doesn't the House of Lords represent British values?
Unless you're talking about non-political representation I don't think it needs changes.
Democracy is overated, the House of Lords should stay, the only reform it needs is to ensure that each member is an expert in a certain field, that way they ensure everyone is capable of contributing
The problem isn't so much that the upper house is unelected as that the lower house isn't proportional. So long as we have FPTP, MPs representing a minority of voters will keep proposing and passing unpopular legislation.
A proportional system would backfire. Pure proportional = MPs have no accountability to a local constituency and no reason to take up local issues. It also provides no guardrail against demagogues or runaway populist movements running roughshod over human rights or rule of law. You'd basically end up with a parliament comprised entirely of London elites only chosen for party loyalty, not because they're popular and electable in the local area they're representing.
Ironically the less "democratic" the lord's is the better. Its obviously broken now its filled with political appointees, but had it not been messed with so much it would've been a sensible counterbalance
True. Bring back the hereditaries. They were the only genuine independent scrutineers that we had.
Yes, of course. Let's bring back the 600 Tory hereditaries who were thrown out in 1999. That'd be a real improvement, I don't think.
@@henryblunt8503Yes, it obviously would.
@@zacharysilver911 Always best to make sure only the Tory party can rule uninhibited by democracy.
@ The past 25 years has shown me that democracy doesn’t work in the modern UK.
Have a house made of 50% experts at the top of different academic fields to 5 year terms and 50% as a people's assembly, two year terms like jury duty. Make it well paid to persuade people to say yes to it. They should have no power to initiate legislation, but 60% required to veto legislation set by the commons.
So who gets to pick who becomes a peer? MPs?
Use Proportional Representation to let each party have a certain number of Lords in the upper house. That way PR would act as a great counterbalance to the first-past-the post commons
I say this as an American to the Brits, please don't support your government's aspiration of getting rid of the hereditary peers. What's the difference between a hereditary peer and a political appointee if both simply sit for life? An elected second chamber like the US Senate will only create more partisan gridlock, especially if there is a case of divided government. Instead here are some reforms I personally believe might help:
1. Limitation to tenure - No Lord should be allowed to serve more than a fixed term of 12-18 years. Also put a limit to the age at around 75. You don't want a gerontocratic upper chamber of parliament that is out of touch with the population like ours.
2. Nonpartisan membership - Upon appointment to the Lords, a member should remain unaffiliated with a political party during their tenure. This will help in scrutinizing bills and will also stop Cabinet Ministers coming from the Lords like David Cameron becoming Foreign Secretary.
3. Power of jury - Allow the upper chamber to exercise power by summoning government ministers and asking them to testify their actions. This is something the US Senate does with our Cabinet Secretaries and will allow the Lords to hold government ministers accountable. With the scandals that have plagued both the tory and labour governments in recent years, the public's frustration is justified, but there is no body holding those ministers to account. This power might allow them to do just that.
4. Appointments to the Lords to be reviewed by a nonpartisan committee - Instead of allowing the Prime Minister to solely appoint anyone, set up a non-partisan committee, representing not only MPs from each party, but also common folk like teacher, soldiers, doctors, and farmers. Give this committee the power to review appointments suggested by the Prime Minister and have them vote to approve the nomination or reject it.
The idea of almost a Teacher checking written assignments more thorough sounds like a good idea.
It should be *changed*. If it remains, then it should stay on as a technocratic advisory chamber - no hereditary peers, no clergy, no political appointments, and certainly no using it as a reward for your cronies. Appointments should be made solely on the basis of merit or expertise in a field, and if possible, made by an independent body.
Alternatively, make it an elected upper chamber with proportional representation.
Absolutely agree with you, the only other thing I would say is to put a limit on how long they serve. i.e. 10 years or no over 75's.
Based, slay. You are so right
@ericajohnson3504 An age limit, certainly, but I think for an advisory chamber - especially if it's intended to be expertise-led - longevity can be useful. I'd say 20 years, or up to around 75.
And if we're talking a proportionally elected chamber for regional representatives, then I'd say that to keep the same longevity and limit short-term thinking, terms should be more like 7-10 years.
@@josephharrison8354 good point, just know that by 75 mental abilities are generally failing and people start getting tired. So no over 75's and as you say a longer term if elected, longer than the 5 years for the Commons might be a good balance. But for appointments then under 20 years. If they are in the advisory chamber for 20 years they are by the middle to end of that period very removed from their experience, if not out of touch completely as things move on very quickly now.
This is the solution we need
*Starmer will never do this, this would be actual change.*
Honestly having a panel of a bunch of experts to go over legislation and kick it back with notes reading "if you do this shit the economy crashes" is something we need in the US
Replace the Senate with that. The US Senate is a ridiculously undemocratic institution despite being elected, it basically allows for minority rule and actively encourages smaller states to shrink their populations further. The entire strategy of the Republican party at this point is to make life as miserable as possible for liberals/minorities in red states so those people all cram into the west coast and northeast and allowing the Republicans to take more senate seats, gerrymander their way into house majorities and exploit the electoral college to hold the presidency so they can maintain minority rule.
No. Giving the Commons even more power is absolutely absurd considering the state of the country.
Giving equal power to unelected mostly high society and out of touch twats might just be worse than giving it to mostly high society elected twats
At least the Commons are democratically elected unlike the nutters in the House of Lords🤡
you're so right bestie, the power should instead be in the hands of unelected super minority class elites who were put there by previous members of the house of commons
@gamerboyx8243 That didn't stop them from destroying the country. No matter the party in power, this is a ridiculous decision.
@@gamerboyx8243 That didn't stop them from destroying the country. The Lords would be in better shape if the Commons didn't fiddle with it. This is a terrible self decision.
Abolishing, rather than reforming, the Lords will only give the government more power and it will have less scrutiny over the bills it passes. The power of the legislative would also be diminished as they won't have a second chance to reconsider bills. This alone is a bad thing.
As an Anglophile American, my understanding is that while people want to reform the House of Lords, where the line is drawn on said reforms is that people do not want to turn the chamber into a second House of Commons.
The 2nd chamber is not representative of the wider population..
Not all angles are debated /considered when scrutinising legislation..
It would be interesting to see a video focusing on the result of abolishing the House of Lords. What would the British government look like if the House of Commons was the only house in parliament?
new laws would be passed over night in 1 vote by the government of the day
@@graveperil2169That is not the case. There are many democratic Western countries with one house that function fine. There is still a body in place in each of them to scrutinise laws before they go into effect.
Well, consider that in 4.5 years, there will likely be a Reform/Tory government hellbent on leaving the ECHR, trampling on traditional British rights, socialising losses, and privatising profits. Given that the old, apparently lazy, and unelected guys have so far been much better at protecting freedoms than Parliament, we might miss them a lot in 4.5 years if they are no longer there.
Maybe Starmer will get the point and take a populist pivot in those 4.5 years before we end up with Farage as PM. There needs to be a progressive populist counter to the rising Fascism on the right and it needs to be someone other than the virulently anti-semitic and identity politics obsessed Corbyn. The people are done with the status quo, Starmer will just usher in Fascism if he doesn't do something other than kick the can down the road.
Don’t remove the house, slightly change things, don’t allow PMs to send people into the HOL
The criticisms articulated by people are always that they wear red twice a year, aren't elected (like many upper houses), and a couple of the appointments weren't popular. If every government institution was this hard to criticise we'd be in a much better place.
They aren't supposed to show up on every issue since many are appointed for knowledge in a specific field and they cost very little as far as legislators in developed countries go
I think it would be a good follow-up on this video to explain some of the suggested and most popular options for reform and what the pros/cons would be of these systems
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I think the last point of the video is a very important and overlooked one - by being unelected, the Lords don't have to worry about being voted out and can therefore theoretically make decisions which are genuinely in the country's best interests, as opposed to the PM and MPs who make decisions which are also biased towards keeping their party in power. I do think the Lords needs reform, but I also think its role is important in moderating parlimentary decisions.
Speaking as an American who's seen the degradation of the Supreme Court, an unelected body with lifetime appointments, those sorts of appointments are not free from bias and politics
Equally, they can make decisions that are against the interest of the country and are based onto their beliefs and nothing of ability or knowledge.
Not elected, but with seats bought from the Tories maybe labour. Clear party affiliation. It's hardly doing what it's supposed to do or be.
Please look at how Russia and North Korea are run if you thinking being unelected makes you care about your country's best interests.
@@gentlemandemon why I would agree with some of what you’re saying there I would say that is more of a problem that the Supreme Court has we too much power for how it is elected
“The House of Lords is needed to prevent undemocratic legislation from passing”
In a real country this is done through a written constitution and a judicial branch.
Also that golden throne is gross.
And how's that working for our American friends across the pond? Going pretty well yeah?
Russia has a written constitution and judicial system but Vladimir Putin still has full authority, Iran has written constitution and judicial branch but still has a dictatorship under Ali Khamenei.
@@samsoncooper1funny funny how you immediately bring america as if america is the only country with a strong judicial branch and a written constitution lmao
@@goldenfiberwheat238 I mean it is funny, has he not got a point? Plus, considering recent developments it has become clear that America's judicial branch isn't very strong at all.
I think having one chamber full of MPs representing equal areas of land and another equally powerful chamber of MPs representing areas of equal population sounds quite fair, but first FPTP must be banned.
Why, this quite literally means that you would be able to buy political power by buying land
What about making the Lords like the Senate in the Netherlands or Bundesrat in Germany? Regional authorities, elected by people, appoints some quota of senators as representatives of regional authorities.
Minimum age is 30‐40 years old, maximum age is 70 years old. One term is 6 years. For more integrity, at the end of the term residents of the region vote yes or no for their re-appointment. If voter turnout is more than 50% and "No" gets more than 50%, regional authorities will have not to re-appoint this representative and it will have to replace him.
we dont want them voted in one elected body is enough
The House of Lords is what the Senate should be in the U.S. (in terms of what they do, not necessarily in how they get their jobs)
There’s a quirk in the Lords that allows the appointment of a member as PM, which apart from an unelected PM could also see the Archbishop or Prince Harry at No10.
It’s not a quirk - lots of Prime Ministers have come from the Lords. Harry could not become PM because the right for the immediate royal family to sit in the House of Lords was removed in 1999. Obviously an Archbishop could potentially become pm but that’s highly unlikely.
Yes the House of Lords should be removed. Unelected officials who have a hand in our lives is undemocratic
Is that the only reason you have? That it's undemocratic?
You know what, because so many people want Proportional representation but that would cause a lot of chaos, it would make sense in the second chamber was made of people from different parties based off their % of votes.
Keep hereditary peers in the current capacity and get rid of the people who paid to be there.
First fix the House of Commons. The House of Lords is the only thing that has kept the UK from complete lunacy.
Yes, obviously. Imagine having an aristocracy in 2024. Same goes for the monarchy.
Politicians abolishing those that should ideally hold them to account, what could go wrong…
The best reform would be to kick out all the life peers and welcome back the rest of the hereditary peers.
Half the people there have done nothing making them worthy of that position, they haven’t even so much as been chosen by the people
I used to think that, then I done some research and saw how many laws they have blocked that would have further eroded our freedom. It's because they have done nothing making them worthy of that position that, some of them at least, don't want/need more money and power and genuinely try to do the right thing, in there opinion, instead of this theater we get with our elected politicians lying and cheating to try to gain and keep power.
Yet a lot of them do a better job than MPs and stand up for British values. Watch the house of lords and you'll see why it's needed. ❤️
I mean just because it is chosen by the people, doesn't mean it is better.
And the members are not representative of the population...
As opposed to normal MPs?
You should never get rid of something that has stood that long on a whim
The House of Lords shouldn’t be abolished by instead strengthened by eliminating all the political picks, keeping the lords (obviously) but putting in representatives from various aspect of Britain society outside the gov. influence. For example a representative/s from farmers, artisans, entrepreneurs, fishermen, food industry workers and owners, exporters, tech workers and so on (maybe every representative or association will have a minimum membership for it to be recognised ) and they would serve for 10 years (or more) to assure continuity. Their objective would be primarily to make sure that the future of Britain wouldn’t be sacrificed for some immediate political gain by any party. Some sensible laws like military budget, debt or public cuts may have a bigger majority to achieve to let it go through (like 60% instead of 52%). The House of Lords would be transformed into a neo Roman senate.
Let's see ... "unelected" and "for life." Yeah. What could go wrong? Sheesh. Even asking this question is pathetic. As an American, it's unbelievable that England is still living in the 18th century.
Exactly. But we can't change it because British conservatism is anti-democratic, classist and authoritarian.
If you oppose this horrible unfair system in this country, you're a socialist, not a liberal.
No. We should abolish Labour.
It was the house of lords that stopped some of the largest cuts to benefits in 2016, you need a second house to scrutinise and carefully review laws.
Keep the house of Lords, keep it unelected but choose one person at random from each constituency.
House of Lords should shut down.
Having a chamber where there are members for life is pretty crazy ngl
It would be if they had real power. As they are, they can slam the brakes on new legislation for a while and make suggestions to change obviously terrible ideas. Having people who do that as a lifelong job does make sense as they have decades of experience in the system and less of a political incentive to rush through botched laws for easy votes.
@@someguy3766 people romanticise elected officials o much. They are more interested in getting elected next term than long term goals. Having life-peer makes them more independent of election cycles.
@@baselius662 Independent to do whatever they want, with no regard at all to how their actions affect anyone other than themselves. Accountability is not a bad thing for people who have power over other people.
@@wassholm Which is why they do NOT have power. All they can do is delay and scrutinise legislation, the Commons actually get to make the law. They serve a useful role as a sort of wise old uncle telling the young leader to consider his decisions more carefully. And compared to the Commons, the Lords is actually full of a lot of people with real expertise in all sorts of stuff. Doctors, engineers, businessmen, scientists, professors etc. They often have a much better understanding of the technical implications of various laws as well as an interest in seeing such laws implemented in sensible ways. It is the Commons that is mostly full of people solely motivated by getting votes and making laws that benefit them and their mates.
I think it's really odd that the Gamons who complained the most about unelected people in brussels seem to be the keenest on the Lords and the monarch.
Not at all.
I'm all for retiring the monarchy - an outdated medieval throwback.
..
I think the real issue with the upper chamber, is the size, and political nominations unnecessarily cluttering up the system..
unelected people that can not start or totally block just advise
Why not look back 3 years to see which lords have never attended or have never spoken?.
We could probably get rid of them without losing anything.
Let them keep their titles if you like. Just not their seats.
If you make it a requirement, all that will happen is that they'll just stand up and say something stupid so that it's recorded that they said something; continuing to game the system.
The house of lords serves an important function, but theres alot of room for improvement. It needs fixing not abolishing.
I know I might be in the minority here, but I think the comments made a mistake in the 90s by limiting the House of Lords to only 92 hereditary Lords, what I think they should’ve done is let all the hereditary peers stay but say only a percentage of them can vote each vote so it’s not always the same people voting
Yes, are we in 2024 or 1424
A lifetime appointment doesn't stop someone from having strong biases. Just look at the US Supreme Court and the rest of our federal judges.
That’s true however generally in the UK House of Lords they are much less politically aligned than their House of Commons counterpart. Conservatives voted against conservative governments countless times and vice Verza
Getting rid of religious leaders would be a good start. Hereditary peers are also strange in the 21st century
while the public are silly enough to follow gods they should be represented
@graveperil2169 But free-thinking atheists and non-conformists do not get a voice just because they don't have an ecclesiastical hierarchy. Doesn't make sense to me
@@fungalbob atheists dont have a rule book to follow
It’s time for UK to federalise and have regions represented through members elected by local parliaments
No please I don’t want to turn the uk in to USA 2.0 thanks
@@sakshamrai1803 yes no more US this is good it just needs some reform that is it
@@Mayfairpaganthere are good and elements to the US system
No it's not, we don't need a federal system here. Some more devolution perhaps.
@@someguy3766 agreed. The US has a federal system because it's as large as Europe herself!
I'd rather we abolish Two Tier Starmer to the depths of the Mariana Trench.
So essentially the House of Lords acts like a peculiar hybrid of the US Supreme Court and Senate, except with its balls removed.
It doesn't act the artifacts of the USA governmental system at all. Why even make the comparison?
Considering the house of lords have stopped some terrible versions of bills getting through to royal ascent and told the commons to amend it. Id rather they stay
As brutal as it sounds, democracy should not have primacy over competent and benevolent rule. The house of lords is an example of undemocratic competence, shielding us from many excesses of state expansion and incursions into personal liberty. It is a sad fact that although the aristocracy produce self-serving policies, they are also the class who produced John Stewart Mill and the foundations of liberal democracy that we all enjoy.
If we got rid of the house of Lords, the government couldn't see beyond five years
1/ There are far too many in the House of Lords. Cut the numbers by half.
2/ Do away with the hereditary seats.
3/ Do away with political appointments
4/ We do not want another load of career politicians.
5/ We do need members who know how the big world outside works.
6/ Expand the role of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Apart from that I do not really know of a solution that will please everyone, but the above points would be a good start.
The second house should stay, but be an advisory technocratic senate. Also, get rid of the FPTP system (and the monarchy).
revolution like this never works here...
You dare question the intellectual authority of Lord David Cameron? YOU'LL HANG FOR THIS!!!
My suggested reform:
- reduce number of lords
- have a maximum term for lords, but make that term fairly long (e.g. 10, 20 years)
- appoint lords in batches, and use a proportional representation referendum to select lords
Yes. Its very outdated.
Abolish.
The Lords need reform, most essentially to remove the capacity for Lords to be made as political appointments by the ruling party. They should be put back entirely under the guidance and appointment of the Monarchy.
Yes. I think it is time for that. Labour have imposed VAT on private school fees. Clearly the class system is weakening.
Bringing back Hereditary Peers would make the House of Lords more non-partisan and professional, as they learn how to do their job from their predecessors. They arent beholden to political parties like the Peers handpicked by PM
It's not that difficult.
1) Make it so the memberships is half the size of the commons
2) That they are reappointed every full term (so five years)
3) If you have ever been elected locally, regionally, state or union your barred
Yes we should
Of course, the so-called House of lords should be scrapped. Undemocratic anachronism.
Lords having a longer-term view is an important strength, but it's one we could still have in a democratic system.
Say we create 200 constituencies. Each constituency gets 4 lords to sit in the House. We hold a House of Lords election every 5 years where each constituency elects 1 lord for a period of 20 years.
We therefore get 800 Lords, all of whom get to sit for 20 years, but are staggered at 5 year intervals.
Or, if 800 is too many, have 2 lords per constituency and a vote every 10 years.
So now you want less checks and balances? Ffs yall have lost your damn minds
No, we should reform, but not abolish. If you abolish, the government of the day will have carte Blanche to bring in legislation with no checks or challenges.
The UK should scrap the house of commons and the house of Lords. The whole system is inherently flawed.
You don't have to abolish it, just limit their numbers to like about 200 to 300, and there must be a compulsory retirement age for members (about 70-80 y.o.).
Yes of course the house of lords should be abolished
And give more power to the Commons? No thanks!
@@baselius662You can enact other forms of checks and balances on systems with one legislature. Have a look into countries that have unicameral systems.
The House of Lords should definitely not be abolished it’s a piece of our history but it should be reformed. I believe that the only people who should be in the house are the hereditary peers the ones that actual come from aristocratic families who actual inherit the title of lord and have historical titles with royalty. Peerages for people from political parties should be scrapped in favour of tradition like what we’ve had for centuries. The way to reform The House of Lords would be to just simply remove everyone who has become a peer through peerages.
The house of form needs reform not abolishion. The fact the house is unelected is not some the smoking gun indicating that something is inherently wrong or bad. The unelected house is incredibly useful for our democracy, however, these scroungers who turn up and contribute nothing need to go immediately. In fact I’d rather the hereditary peers stay instead of people who don’t contribute
I'm not from the UK, but I think a unicameral legislature in the Parliament promotes enactment of hastly and poorly studied policies and laws. Instead of abolishing the House of Lords, maybe just reducing it's membership. Instead of being appointed for life, why just reduce it to 10 years, where another apointment takes place every 10 years. Since the Monarchy enjoys some degree of confidence from its subjects, why not the Monarch makes the appointments where the Parliament may nominate an individual to the chamber. The Monarch should be able to reject such nominations if the Monarch deems an individual not fit to be a member of the House of Lords. Likewise, to check and balance the House of Lords, the Monarch shall be able to suspend or remove a member of the House of Lords.
Electing the members of House of Lords can't help as well given the behavior of politicians in the House of Commons -- the House of Lords will be just a House of Commons 2.0.
It’s already been abolished and replaced with old MPs, yes the Common people, and those Party donors. Getting closer to a Republic and total control by whomever is pulling the levers…
Abolishing the House of Lords IS NOT going to make the Commons more proportional. Why can't we start there?
I think the House of Lords should exist but reformed to reduce the politicisation and cost. Reduce the numbers, eliminate political appointments and focus purely on bringing the expertise to the scrutiny of legislation. If we relly wanted to amp it up, we could institute a mandatory retirement age or a tenure length (15-20 years).
We shouldnt have "overpaid" lords hand picked by Prime Ministers,
I've seen them do good work, but that seems like something normal people could also do, maybe picked from a variety of professionals in a variety of fields.
Saying they are overpaid is ridiculous. Their pay should probably be increased 10 times, but anti-bribery laws increased 10 times, so they would be in constant fear that their next action is going to get them arrested for bribery charges.
don't worry its called lobbying and its perfectly legal
I have not watched the video when I'm writing this, but the answer is yes. Having unelected parliamentarians is fundamentally undemocratic (which of course is fitting, since the UK is not a democracy), and should not be acceptable anywhere. Also having a system that explicitly suggest that some people are "Lords" and some are "Commons" should be an insult to all people.
Yeah, watching the video did nothing to change my mind. Go figure.
As an american I frequently ask "why hasn't this institution been reformed yet!" I mean I get the patriotic reasons for keeping the Monarchy (and it really isn't that much money to keep going), but the House of Lords is Anit-Democratic.
Replace all the lords with people who are selected by the peers select committee each lord aproved, rejected and removed from the house by refuredums. This keeps them as experts appointed for their insights and keeps them from electoral politics while also making them accountable to the public.
I’m American and yes, my government is useless but when I hear about British government, all I hear is just wasted dollars I would be livid if I lived there
It’s interesting because Lords are meant to stop corruption but then the PM can hire whoever they want, which means they could just hire their mates
I hate to say it but I think they either need a major reform or to begone forever
I have long had an idea of how it could be reformed. Keep the Cross-Benchers as is.
Divide it into Numerary and Supernumerary Peers
Numerary Peers -appointed by the amount of the vote their party got at the last election (either 1 lord per 1% of the vote or one lord per 100,000 national votes) If the number of lords a party has goes over their allocation the excess become supernumerary. If they don't have enough they can appoint new ones, following the current checks by the apointments commitee. If the electorate swing back then the supernumararies return to being numerary
Supernumarires - Either wait to become numeraries again, or can be invited by a commitee to serve there so their expertise can still be used.
They already had a weird internal election system to choose which hereditary peers got to be sitting members so that can be extended so the already appointed peers choose their collegues.
This adds in a democratic element as far as the political peers are concerned. It also prevents parties gaining leverage over their lords keeping them as they are in terms of independance
.