Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Castrating the Lords

No, not the final solution for the hereditary peerage, but secret discussions that appear to have been taking place under the last government to curtail backbenchers powers and, in effect, neuter our ability to reform legislation. I've put down a question asking what's been going on.

I bet Labour are glad now that they did not succeed - but why were the cross benches keen on the idea (presuming my sources are accurate)?

1 Comments:

Anonymous Dave H said...

Perhaps an alternative to the Parliament Act that gives the Lords more power would be to arrange that instead of the Commons prevailing, continued resistance by the Lords results in some sort of referendum of the people on the sticking points. That way you're in a position to handle controversial legislation where the Lords really think the Government have got it wrong. I trust the Lords to generally let the Government have its way and only invoke the option infrequently, in the same way that the Parliament Act is not often used.

4:39 pm  

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