Lords reforms provoke rebellion
Government plans to reform the House of Lords have provoked a rebellion from previously loyal Labour peers and MPs.
Former Commons speaker Betty Boothroyd and former minister Denis MacShane have both spoken out over proposed reforms to the upper chamber in the last few days.
Last week leader of the House of Commons Jack Straw set out proposals to finish the reform of the Lords that Labour started when it came to power in 1997.
The document recommended a chamber made up of half elected members, 30 per cent political appointees and 20 per cent non-political nominations – but Mr Straw emphasised that this was only his view and was not endorsed by the cabinet (full story).
But these plans were branded the “worst of all worlds” by Baroness Boothroyd, while Denis MacShane, former Europe minister, branded the proposals “an embarrassment”.
Baroness Boothroyd, speaking on Sky News Sunday Live, said: “I’ve always held the view that these are working people in the House of Lords. I would be happy to see them stay there until they just fell off the perch, to put it crudely.
“But one thing I am adamantly opposed to is a hybrid house, a house that is partly elected and partly appointed. That is simply not going to work, it’s a mis-match and the worst of all worlds.”
She added that the Lords occupied a vital role in scrutinising legislation that MPs do not look at closely enough.
“We take so many items of legislation, bills that have come through the Commons where only a third or half of that legislation has been scrutinised in the Commons,” she said.
She added that an elected house would be more likely to rebel.
“It’s going to want to say ‘we’ve got as much power, as much authority as the House of Commons’. It would be a very bad thing. I cherish the Commons, I regard it as the supreme house and that is how it should be.”
An example of this was in November, when Tory peer Lord Kingsland said he still believed rules allowing fast-track extradition to the United States “should never have been signed”, but added: “We have sent the bill back to the elected house twice, and it has come back to us twice, effectively unchanged.
“It would be wrong for the unelected house, having faced two repudiations, to send it back one more time.” (full story)
Inside the Commons feeling is also running high.
“For the first time in my years as an MP I shall consciously vote against my Labour government,” Mr MacShane wrote in a comment piece for the Daily Telegraph today.
He explains his decision is due to the government’s plan to “tear up more than seven centuries of history”, because it is “unwilling to show any leadership on the legislation needed to modernise the House of Lords”.
The former minister called for a smaller, elected chamber, and also criticised the voting process on this matter.
“It is wrong to remove from the Commons its right to vote in the way it has always done,” he said.
