Tag Archives: constitutional reform

Clegg signals new approach to individual voter registration in evidence to Parliamentary committee

By Nick Thornsby | Published 9th February 2012 - 11:28 am

Last Wednesday saw Nick Clegg return for his annual appearance before the House of Lords Constitution Committee. As one might expect, a whole range of political reform and constitutional issues were covered in the 90 minute evidence session.

One interesting answer by the Deputy Prime Minister which caught my attention was on the topic of individual voter registration. Asked by Liberal Democrat peer Lord (Chris) Rennard whether there would be changes to the government approach as set out in the earlier White Paper when we see legislation on the issue soon, Clegg had the following to say:

The short answer is ‘yes’….We

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Posted in Election law, News | Also tagged chris rennard, electoral registration, nick clegg, political and constitutional reform committee | 7 Comments

Opinion: Why is Nick Clegg being quite so wrong on Lords reform?

By Robin McGhee | Published 27th December 2011 - 2:50 pm

If there is one thing taken for granted amongst Lib Dems it is that the House of Lords needs radical reform. In fact, most Lib Dems would go further than that. Like Cromwell, they would abolish the Lords outright, to be replaced with a Senate or not at all. But there are a substantial minority who, like me, think this is the wrong approach.

In an otherwise excellent speech before Christmas Nick Clegg set out his stall as a fervent abolitionist. He used the rhetoric of Lloyd George to express his purported frustration with the, er, hereditary system which was …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform, nick clegg | 44 Comments

Clegg: we will use Parliament Act to ensure Lords is reformed

By Mark Pack | Published 19th December 2011 - 8:55 am

In a speech to the Demos think tank today, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg will use some particularly robust language about seeing through House of Lords reform:

There is a typical Westminster village cynicism that Lords reform is never going to happen because it has not happened in 100 years. I have no doubt that the opponents in the House of Lords will use every wily trick in the trade to circumvent what is a perfectly normal and long overdue change to a legislature that is not transparent and not democratically accountable to the people…

There should be no doubt about

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Posted in News | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform, nick clegg | 9 Comments

Opinion: A New Approach to our Union

By Nicola Prigg | Published 15th November 2011 - 11:45 am

The current approach to the United Kingdom doesn’t work.

The current approach treats each home nation as an individual, yet this approach leads to everyone pulling the centre in every direction. It leads to infighting, or to one country taking control and dictating to the others how they should be run. Neither result leads to a strong union.

We currently have the Scotland Bill going through Parliament devolving more powers to the Scottish Parliament; Wales passed a referendum giving its citizens the ability to pass primary legislation; and Nick Clegg has set up a commission to address the …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged england, northern ireland, republic of ireland, Scotland, united kingdom, Wales | 26 Comments

House of Lords reform: the next steps

By Mark Pack | Published 24th September 2011 - 9:55 am

As I mentioned when blogging Ming Campbell’s speech from Liberal Democrat conference, the motion in favour of Lords reform was passed overwhelmingly.

That in itself was not a surprise, but that does not mean actually securing Lords reform will be easy. Two immediate ways you can support the campaign for House of Lords reform are:

Posted in News | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform, ming campbell | Leave a comment

Ming Campbell urges Lib Dem peers to back Lords reforms

By Mark Pack | Published 23rd September 2011 - 10:55 am

One of the speakers in the Lords reform debate at Liberal Democrat conference was former party leader Ming Campbell, who not only backed the plans for elections to a reformed upper house but also directly addressed the Lib Dem peers who have been talking of opposing the introduction of elections:

The motion was passed overwhelmingly, including the diversity amendment.

You can support the campaign for House of Lords reform by signing up to the Facebook page Liberal Democrats for Lords Reform and by taking part in the official Parliamentary consultation (it only takes …

Posted in News | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform, ming campbell | 3 Comments

LibLink: Mark Pack – Some party rebellions are good for the leader

By NewsHound | Published 18th September 2011 - 2:34 pm

The Voice’s Mark Pack has been guesting over at the New Statesman again, this time pointing out how there are some party rebels Nick Clegg may rather welcome:

Political pundits go on endlessly about how leaders should have “Clause 4 moments” when they pick a fight with parts of their own parties. In this case, the reluctant [Lib Dem peers opposed to Lords reform] have handily offered themselves up in opposition to Nick Clegg and democrats, providing an easy route for the Deputy Prime Minister to garner the benefits of a Clause 4 moment without its usual pains.

You can read …

Posted in LibLink | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform, mark pack, nick clegg, nick thornsby | Leave a comment

Have you taken part in the House of Lords reform consultation yet?

By Mark Pack | Published 16th September 2011 - 8:55 am

Aside from the debate at Liberal Democrat conference on Lords reform, there’s another important opportunity to have your say on Lords reform at the moment. The official public consultation from the Joint Committee of the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill runs until 12 October and Unlock Democracy have put together a very simple to use website that steps you through responding to the consultation quickly and effectively.

So do make a visit to http://action.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/page/s/lords-reform-consultation and make sure your views go in before 12 October.

Posted in News | Also tagged featured, house of lords, Joint Committee of the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill, lords reform, unlock democracy | Leave a comment

Opinion: “I don’t like them, you don’t like them… We have to have them”

By Dinti Batstone | Published 14th September 2011 - 9:25 am

This Saturday, Conference has the opportunity to show that Liberal Democrats are genuinely committed to achieving gender balance in our own distinctively liberal and democratic way.

Conference will debate an amendment which Jo Shaw and I have put forward to Mark Pack and Paul Tyler’s Lords reform motion. Our amendment builds on the approach taken by our party in the late 1990s, when one-off zipping was used to deliver a gender-balanced cohort of Lib Dem MEPs in the first PR elections to the European Parliament.

In an ideal world we wouldn’t need these kinds of measures. But with just 12% women …

Posted in Conference, Op-eds | Also tagged campaign for gender balance, claire tyler, equalities, gender balance, house of lords, jo shaw, lords reform, lynne featherstone, mark pack, paul tyler | 14 Comments

Paul Tyler writes… A manual for Coalition?

By Paul Tyler | Published 7th September 2011 - 2:25 pm

Dr Andrew Blick, a Senior Research Fellow at Democratic Audit, and Lord (Peter) Hennessy have co-authored a new report called The Hidden Wiring Emerges. (It provides the best and most comprehensive analysis yet of the Coalition’s draft Cabinet Manual, published in December 2010.

The whole document – and the whole report on it – should attract anyone concerned with the health of our democracy. However, one point of dispute may interest Liberal Democrats in particular.

The authors highlight an idea described in the Manual that, following the resignation of a Prime Minister after a General Election, the person ‘seemingly most likely …

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged andrew blick, lord peter hennessy | 3 Comments

House of Lords Reform: the Joint Select Committee calls for evidence

By Mark Valladares | Published 15th July 2011 - 1:41 pm

Whilst the News of the World scandal has drawn virtually all of the attention, the clock has started ticking on the work of the Joint Select Committee on the Draft House of Lords Reform Bill. Comprising twenty six members appointed from both the House of Commons and the House of Lords, it is charged with considering the draft Bill and reporting by 29 February 2012.

At its first meeting, which took place on Monday, such decisions as how often it would meet were discussed, but the key decision was to proceed with a Call for Evidence. This represents your …

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged house of lords, lords reform | Leave a comment

DPMQs: “Grotesque” and “beneath contempt” – Clegg on the Milly Dowler phone hacking allegations

By Paul Walter | Published 5th July 2011 - 8:45 pm

The highest profile issue at Deputy Prime Minister’s questions today was the issue of press phone hacking in the light of the allegations concerning Milly Dowler and the News of the World.

Harriet Harman asked Nick Clegg to back Ed Miliband’s call for a general public inquiry into illegality in the newspaper industry. As someone has said, this is a bit like holding an inquiry into why we get bad weather. In a sign of divisions within Labour, Chris Bryant, in contrast, has called for a more narrow inquiry.

Nick Clegg stopped short of backing an inquiry but, instead, emphasised the importance …

Posted in Parliament | Also tagged Angela Smith, chris bryant, david amess, DPMQs, ed miliband, electoral registration, harriet harman, house of lords, lords reform, mark harper, nick clegg, Phone hacking | 29 Comments

LibLink: Lord Tyler – Restore teeth to the Lords

By Nick Thornsby | Published 5th July 2011 - 5:21 pm

Lib Dem peer Lord (Paul) Tyler recently took to the Guardian’s Comment Is Free along with Labour’s Lord (Andrew) Adonis with a joint piece arguing that their fellow members of the House of Lords should back proposals to reform the second chamber.

Here’s a sample:

Any objection that reform is taking place with undue haste will not stand up to scrutiny. It is now 100 years since the passage of the Parliament Act, which states the intention to substitute the Lords with “a second chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation”.

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged andrew adonis, house of lords, lords reform, paul tyler | Leave a comment

Lord Tyler writes: Don’t listen to the doomsayers

By Paul Tyler | Published 1st July 2011 - 10:53 am

Since the publication of the Government’s White Paper and Draft Bill on House of Lords reform, the old guard have lined up to cavil about its detail, to deride its democratic principles and to defend – in the last ditch – the status quo.

This has augmented the popular media’s predisposition towards arch cynicism and trenchant pessimism. Yet there is firm evidence to contradict their lazy assumptions. Just because Labour engaged in over a decade of dither and delay does not mean that a determined government, with the resolve of the House of Commons behind it, cannot succeed.

The …

Posted in Op-eds, Parliament | Also tagged andrew adonis, chris bryant, dan rogerson, david cameron, david miliband, duncan hames, house of lords, joyce quin, larry whitty, laura sandys, lord mcnally, lords reform, mark harper, mark williams, nick clegg, nick true, therese coffey | 8 Comments

LibLink: Chris Rennard – A fox in the House of Lords

By Nick Thornsby | Published 28th June 2011 - 4:24 pm

Lords of the Blog has a new contributor: Lord (Chris) Rennard, Lib Dem peer and former chief executive of the party. And in his maiden post, Lord Rennard explains why, even after having sat in the place since 1999, he still feels passionately about the necessity for the second chamber’s reform.

Here’s an excerpt:

New visitors to the House usually meet me at Peers’ entrance and often ask fairly quickly about Lords reform. I point immediately to the progress made since I became a peer in 1999. I proudly show them my coat peg in the cloakroom and explain that it

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged chris rennard, house of lords, lords reform | Leave a comment

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