What do you think about removing the House of Lords?

Its so remote from the day to day challenges of my life as to be meaningless. It’s like saying, what do you think if concrete ?.

What I want to ask about ideas like adopting a system like the Americans is - have you flipping looked at the Americans?

What on God's green Earth makes them think this is a good idea? I mean from an evidence based standpoint?

Sounds amazing!

Do we not deserve better than holey clothes? FFS, how did we get to this?

*last, not lady

I forgot to tag a particular post with my lady message but didn't, but does it really matter.... I'm sure there's numerous posts I could have tagged instead 😴

Absolutely hilarious. Let's just continue in the ridiculous decline and pit of corruption the UK has become. Who actually cares any more?

I think we should keep them.

In the commons, MPs vote on stuff often after whatever the whipping process is. So, often votes aren't really fair or representative. Politics is a dirty business.

Whilst the lords isn't an ideal situation, they can stop really stupid decisions made by parliament going through.

I would liken it to having a choice of (when it's cold), being naked or wearing ill-fitting clothes with holes in. On balance, most people would wear the crappy clothes rather than freeze. And that's how I see it with keeping the lords.

C'mon: if you'd googled you'd know there are 786 current sitting members of the HoL.

I am massively in favour of the HoL. They aren’t chasing votes or being whipped. They are the only ones who are free to speak the truth without fear of reprisal.

I agree @DysonSpheres

This ☝️

No. This sort of thing feels me with dread for a Labour government. As said, the pandemic along with this ridiculous, stark raving illogical adherence to self id, showed me that left wing parties in the main are happy to dissolve our rights. Citizen rights, human rights, women's rights. It's funny when I was younger I very much saw left wing as anarchist, forward thinking.

Not now, I see them as conformist, conformist to whatever is deemed 'right think' and happy to force you to conform too. Watching female MP's (some actual mothers) unable to say women have a cervix has blown my mind. Blown it.

Now, I am all for the HoL. And I never ever thought I'd say it, but I'm now VERY pro lifetime and inherited peerages. I don't even care that they get paid just for turning up. Give them more if need be. They are a bulwark against political ideological excess. A balance.

Yes the nonsense of the last few years has also made this woman of Carribbean heritage incredibly pro-monarchy too (not that I was particularly against it, just very ambivalent). Now the thought of an elected Head of State, corruptible, open to flattery, with an eye on retirement roles, schmoozing with big business, now sounds like madness. I only wish there was an upcoming female heir to the throne, but alas no.

I'm keen to get rid of it tbh. I used to think that the HOL shouldn't work but does, but now feel it is incredibly bloated. 800 Lords?? Ridiculous. If anything I think it saps energy and political engagement from the HoC.

For the ceremonial bit, I would like to see the Honours system reformed generally - something like the Legion D'Honneur in France.

Constitutionally I think the Supreme Court may have replaced some of The Lords' previous functions. Could also take something like the Privy Council and turn it into a legislative reviewing body.

The HoL is ridiculous - only the Chinese National People's Congress is larger, and the only other governmental chamber that has seats reserved for religious clerics is in Iran.

The problem, as always, is what to replace it with - in the past the Lords (and Ladies!) has been a very necessary check to ill -thought through legislation from the Commons.

Imagine a football pitch with a goal that extends the entire length of the pitch, no goalkeeper and the the other team is so divided that they're on their third captain early into the second half.
Reform of essential services, restructuring the NHS so it works, more GPs, better schools, a tax code that works (after Kwarteng eliminated the OTS), reforming the criminal justice system, getting the police to chase criminals? Nah, lets give the people what they want and get rid of the House of Lords.
It's depressing that these politicians don't seem to have friends, family, servants, anyone who will tell them what's going on in the country.

I am in favour of the HoL. It seems to be a good debating chamber and is a break on the Commons. I'd support return of the Law Lords and have no objection to the bishops who at least have a moral/spiritual view. Daft to have a second elected chamber - it will challenge the Commons - but absolutely necessary to have the Lords. I would return the Lord Chancellor here - being Justic Minister and an MP suggests he/she is no longer independent, but subject to the rule of the Commons.

I'd like it to be reduced in size substantially and to ban Prime Ministers from being able to appoint people to it. Ideally, reducing the numbers to get rid of anyone who hasn't turned up in the last 2 years would be a start.

However, I think having an elected second chamber is a really bad idea. Many of the problems we have now are from badly drafted and badly thought through legislation which was pushed through as a matter of party loyalty - there needs to remain a proper reviewing chamber which isn't trying to appease an electorate.

As others have said I think the HoL needs to be reformed but we do need a second chamber. There needs to be some way of keeping the HoC in check. Surely the last few years of batshittery have shown that.

Way more Lords than MPs now. Unelected , unaccountable and mostly unknown. The US upper house has 100 members. Surely that would suffice?

Elected by Proportional Representation , needless to say. You'd get fair few Greens , liberals and the odd screwball along with the big parties. But there are some wacky people in the HoL already ....

I think we need some sort of unelected body to prevent mob rule.

the job for life aspect of the lords means members are not cowed by fear of their political party members or baying Twitter mobs.

I’d like to phase out/minimise the hereditary peers aspect, or at least modernise it so first born daughters get it, not just sons.

And there should be some sort of oversight making sure nominations are actually useful to the people and some sort of minimum attendance expectation set.

I really like the idea of having a second house composed of experts from all walks of life, not career politicians bound by the need to be popular or toe the party line. There should be a way to achieve that and make it elected. Totally agree with everyone else that it plays a vital role in scrutinising legislation and providing checks and balances and shouldn’t just be removed.

I would be very much against an elected second house. The HOL has the ability to take the longer view without looking over their shoulder at electorate.

Some reform needed obviously. Remove hereditory peerages, appoint for expertise and experience.

Maybe Keir's looking at the situation here in Wales, where Labour have ruled for 20+ years and there's no second chamber to hold them to account. Scotland too. Whereas more and more people in Wales and Scotland are waking up to the fact that their runaway governments are unaccountable.

Absolutely agreed. I think having an American style upper house of politically motivated individuals would be horrendous. Currently there are about 25% cross benchers, I would actually like them all to be independent of political parties. I would also like there to be no religious appointments either, but that's probably just me.