What do you think about removing the House of Lords?

[MarshaBradyo]

I don’t follow them much but I remember the very emotive and excellent speeches re the word mother in the maternity act.

Some of us followed it on here, and I was grateful enough to the four key players to email them.

My concern is that without those speeches we would have gone in a direction many didn’t want

With proposals to remove it - do you agree?

This ☝️

I agree @DysonSpheres

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.

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

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.

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

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 😴

*last, not lady

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

Sounds amazing!

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?

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 ?.

It's a bad short-termist idea. Why do we keep fiddling round with our constitution thinking it can do no harm? Amd then being surprised when it does? Having experts in the second chamber who are not only passionate - easy to find those - but actually know more than their arse from their elbow - they're much rarer - is really beneficial to the country as a whole.

They're constantly deadlocked. Govt workers didn't get paid because they couldn't get the budget through. Yeah, great idea.

Oh FFS MN. Literal hours trying to write a reply only for it to get eaten just as I was getting the last link over. I shouldn’t have to draft my posts to say more than a few words.

Reform, yes. But not to anything like the US system.

The good things about the current HoL - long term view, not chasing votes - need to be reinforced, not scrapped.

Ger rid of the bishops. No outgoing PM, or other sitting government, appointments. Nobody who has been an MP in the last 10 years. No party affiliations, no whips. Terms of at least 10 years - and if terms are shorter than life, no re-election. If any hereditary element is kept, then equal ops - no male bias to inheriting the post.

This makes me not want to vote Labour. I won’t vote Tory either. Maybe I will write to my mp who is labour.

Sounds like a good plan. Let's keep the shitshow we have now.

My own thoughts have evolved very much like yours over my lifetime. I used to consider myself anarchist, anti monarchist, never in my life voted Tory. Now I find I am ever more appreciative of our constitutional monarchy and even the hereditary peers in the HoL, I want to first born child rather than firstborn son similar to how the monarchy now works. I am even in favour of the Lords Spiritual, although not a church goer myself or member of the C of E, because the Church of England is connected with the monarchy and the state, my local infant and junior schools are C of E for example, this is part of our history and culture and church leaders naturally are interested in the wellbeing of their flocks, the people of this country, they bring a different perspective and about just under 50% of people in the UK “identify” as Christian. Representatives from the other main religions established in the UK should have similar representation too, to bring a Jewish, Muslim, Sikh and Hindu perspective.

I look across at the US in horror, no thank you I definitely don’t want an elected head of state nor an elected second house. I like our mixed system I think it works better, it is more diverse! The US appears to be driven by the interests of money alone, it is to my mind way more elitist than our system, wealth seeks and gains power to further increase wealth which further increases power and so on until wealth and power concentrates in the hands of the few, a new aristocracy or rather an oligarchy with no sense of responsibility to the people or the structures of government, no sense of past or future, none of the noblesse oblige or scared duty mentioned by another poster. In fact there really isn’t any accountability at all, the wealthy individuals and corporations running the show are private citizens and private companies and owe nothing to anyone apart from increasing the wealth of their shareholders if they have them.

oh and I am still not voting Tory, too many of them seem enamoured of US style neo liberal economics.

Yes, the Scottish gov runs roughshod over anything - there have been so many bad and costly decisions made - eg the new parliament, these blooming ferries -could do with a Lords with some with financial wisdom (or any wisdom come to that).

Hereditary seats were stopped in 1999 (though there are some still remaining, time will sort that out)

Starmer is essentially removing the body that regulates the commons and thus regulates him.

Why? What does he want to be able to do that the sitting Lords have prevented. I think we know.

This is dictator level overreach and this man is dangerous.

I’m a bit torn to be honest.
In principle I don’t want a group of unelected unqualified people helping to decide our laws but there are some really good, intelligent members who are there due to success in their field. Plus the fact that they are unelected gives them the ability to make decisions not based on getting re elected (which may or may not be a good thing). Also they are probably not there for the money so hopefully less susceptible to corruption

Our local council here in Scotland falls totally on party lines - so if you have a council of 8 snp and 7 conservatives the snp decision always wins regardless.
If we had a voted Lords the same would happen. Those standing would be like Parliament - so a Cons from the home counties, labour from london, and each candidate would know that if they did anything to annoy their Cons or Labour electorate they'd lose their seat at the next local election so the Lords would be indentikit of the Gov. So no benefit.

@BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn sensible ideas I think. I don't think you could completely avoid some party politics though.

We need a House of Lords to keep the House of Commons in check and it must be non-partisan.

I think what we currently have is probably as close as we are going to get to a good option.

I do wonder about hereditary peers. I like the idea that you have a group of people who have a born responsibility to serve the country and therefore devote themselves fully to public service. The problem is, there are also a group who don't care, or who use it to advance themselves.

Maybe we should have referendums on everything instead - like the Swiss.