Draft a memorandum to the government evaluating the merits and demerits of differing reform options for the composition and powers of the House of Lords

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Bhupinder Kaur Kaler Group M

Draft a memorandum to the government evaluating the merits and demerits of differing reform options for the composition and powers of the House of Lords.

Most liberal democracies have bicameral legislatures, or legislatures with two 'chambers' or 'houses'. In the United Kingdom, the second chamber, the Upper House - or House of Lords - is currently an unelected chamber, which has judicial, leglislative, scrutinising and debating functions. It is a forum for reflection and for second thoughts on prospective policies and legislation. It provides for a diffusion rather than a concentration of parliamentary powers. It provides a valuable role for the revision of legislation which has passed through the lower house, this revision is greatly significant at times where the Lower House has a very strong majority, as it does now, or when the Commons have used methods to curtail debate. The scrutiny and amendment of Bills is equally important in improving the quality of the statute book. Thus the House of Lords does perform a great many important roles that could not be performed by the Commons.

The majority of other second legislative chambers in liberal democracies are elected or are partly elected and part nominated. Until 1999 the House of Lords was comprised of a majority of unelected hereditary members and a minority of nominated members. In 1999, the right of most hereditary peers (which by definition are not democratic and not representative) to sit and vote in the Lords was abolished; leaving the Lords with a majority of nominated and no democratically elected members. Before 1997, the then labour party, in opposition to the Conservative government, pledged that when it came to power it would reform the House of Lords, regarding the role of the unelected as incompatible with liberal democracy. The first of the two-part reform (to remove the right of hereditary peers to vote) was in part completed in 1999 however, there still remain 92 hereditary peers, as a result of the deal brokered by Viscount Cranbourne with the government. The second part of reform was to decide precisely what the composition of the Upper Chamber should be, and what powers they should hold. The possible options for reform include a directly elected second chamber, an indirectly elected second chamber, and also a mixed chamber comprising both elected and nominated elements. A mixed chamber could of course comprise of more elected peers than nominated or more nominated peers than elected, or a House of equal content. These three options which will result in a mixed chamber will be discussed in the form of recommendations made by Lord Wakeham, the chairman of the Royal Commission, for the Reform of the House of Lords and also the leader of the opposition the Right Honourable Ian Duncan Smith's proposals.
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The option of a directly elected second chamber to secure a 'more democratic and more representative' House of Lords does cause us to question what method of electoral representation is to be used. It should be alternative to that of the Commons, as it must be of a lesser validity to the form taken in the Commons, thus the Commons should prevail and if there were to be a clash in decisions taken by either House and therefore preventing a deadlock in Parliament. An obvious alternative is that the Upper House should take a territorial representation as opposed ...

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