Tag Archives: house of lords

Mark Valladares

Coming up in the Lords… 23 January – 2 February

By Mark Valladares | Tue 17th January 2012 - 5:23 pm

It has become abundantly clear since the Christmas break that most of the Parliamentary excitement, apart from that curiosity known as Prime Minister’s Questions, is going to come from the Lords until Easter, and the coming fortnight will be no exception.

Days 5 and 6 of the Report Stage of the Welfare Reform Bill will take place on January 23rd and 25th, with the Third Reading scheduled, perhaps optimistically for 31st January. It’s always dangerous to guess exactly how much progress will be made on Day 4, taking …

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Caron Lindsay

Lib Dem Peers rebel as Government defeated on Welfare Reform

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 11th January 2012 - 8:09 pm

The Government has suffered a series of defeats in the House of Lords tonight on various aspects of the Welfare Reform Bill.

The House of Lords was discussing amendments relating to the Employment and Support Allowance.

The Guardian reports that 3 Liberal Democrats, Jenny Tonge, Matthew Taylor and Roger Roberts voted for an amendment which protected young people’s right to claim Employment and Support Allowance.

The Government was also defeated on their one year time limit for claiming Contributory ESA. This was increased to two years by the amendment. The Liberal Democrat rebels were Dee Doocey and Jenny Tonge.

The third defeat was …

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Mike German

Lord German writes… A benefits system that works: the Welfare Reform Bill in the House of Lords

By Mike German | Fri 6th January 2012 - 11:53 am

As Co-Chair of the Parliamentary Party Committee on Work and Pensions the Welfare Reform Bill has absorbed most of the past year. It is now in the final stages of passage through the House of Lords. There has been some negative press surrounding the Bill, which is clouding aspects that have been long term goals of the Liberal Democrats.

A big first step is being taken towards our long term ambition of merging tax and benefits. Our benefit system is the most complex and cumbersome system in the developed world. It requires an annual book to be published which explains …

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Mark Valladares

Coming up in the Lords… 10-20 January

By Mark Valladares | Wed 4th January 2012 - 12:47 pm

Welcome to Liberal Democrat Voice’s coverage of the House of Lords, where we’ll be flagging up some of the forthcoming events at the more reflective end of the Palace of Westminster. So, without further ado…

The House of Lords returns to work next Tuesday after its Christmas recess, with a heavy legislative schedule to be dealt with before the end of the Session, and the first fortnight offers a hint of what is to come.

Days 2, 3 and 4 of the Committee Stage of the Legal Aid, Sentencing …

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Joshua Dixon

Opinion: The opportunity for Lords Reform must be taken

By Joshua Dixon | Wed 28th December 2011 - 2:57 pm

In 1997 the Labour Party manifesto outlined that under a Labour government the House of Lords would be reformed so that “the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute…“. It was clear that change appeared to be on the agenda and the House of Lords Act 1999 provided changes to the rights of Hereditary Peers, removing the right for members to inherit their seats. This was achieved via a compromise which ensured 92 hereditary peers would remain in the House on an interim basis.

Although these were necessary …

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Robin McGhee

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

By Robin McGhee | Tue 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 …

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Mark Pack

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

By Mark Pack | Mon 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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Baroness Liz Barker

Baroness Liz Barker writes: Liberal Democrat peers working to secure an NHS fit for the future

By Baroness Liz Barker | Wed 7th December 2011 - 6:53 pm

After five weeks of detailed, intensive scrutiny the House of Lords is about to start discussing Part 3 of the Health and Social Care Bill. This is the part which deals with the role of Monitor and EU competition law.

Building on the work of Nick Clegg in June this year following the listening exercise, Liberal Democrat peers are working hard to ensure that the legislation fully reflects our policy that competition should be strictly limited to those areas of commissioning and provision where there is evidence that it improves patient outcomes.

We will continue to argue that there should be nothing …

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Judith Jolly

Baroness Judith Jolly writes… The House of Lords will challenge, revise and improve the Health Bill

By Judith Jolly | Tue 11th October 2011 - 4:53 pm

Tony Blair, on the eve of the 1997 General Election, famously proclaimed that we have just “24 hours to save the NHS”. A nice rhetorical flourish, but lacking in objectivity. Perhaps somewhat like the Labour party. Similar language is once again being used this week as the House of Lords debates giving a second reading to the Health and Social Care Bill. Opposition groups have jumped on this by suggesting that this is the last chance to ‘stop’ this Bill. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given the complexity of the inner workings of the House of Lords, this doesn’t properly reflect …

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Mark Pack

House of Lords reform: the next steps

By Mark Pack | Sat 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:

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Mark Pack

Ming Campbell urges Lib Dem peers to back Lords reforms

By Mark Pack | Fri 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:

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NewsHound

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

By NewsHound | Sun 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 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 Mark’s post about Lib Dem conference …

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Mark Pack

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

By Mark Pack | Fri 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.

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Dinti Batstone

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

By Dinti Batstone | Wed 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 …

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Helen Duffett

Today’s by-election: Excepted hereditary peers

By Helen Duffett | Tue 19th July 2011 - 8:15 pm

A by-election took place today in the House of Lords, to fill the vacancy among the excepted hereditary peers, created by the death of Lord Ampthill on 23 April. The ballot (under AV) was held between 10am and 8pm today in the Queen’s Robing Room, and the count will be conducted tomorrow by Electoral Reform Services.

Lord Ampthill was one of the 15 hereditary peers elected by the whole House, as part of a compromise in the House of Lords Act 1999, which retained 92 hereditaries in the House of Lords. His successor is also elected by “all …

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Helen Duffett

Peer told to “cease and desist” claiming he’s a member of the House of Lords

By Helen Duffett | Mon 18th July 2011 - 12:43 pm

Lord Monckton, climate change sceptic and UKIP’s head of research, has been told to stop claiming to be a member of the House of Lords, in a letter sent to him personally and also published on the House of Lords website.

In his letter, David Beamish, Clerk of the Parliaments, makes the distinction:

No-one denies that you are, by virtue of your letters Patent, a Peer. That is an entirely separate issue to membership of the House… I am publishing this letter on the parliamentary website so that anybody who wishes to check whether you are a Member of the House of Lords can view this official confirmation that you are not.

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Mark Valladares

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

By Mark Valladares | Fri 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 …

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Paul Walter

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

By Paul Walter | Tue 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 …

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Nick T

LibLink: Lord Tyler – Restore teeth to the Lords

By Nick T | Tue 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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Paul Tyler

Lord Tyler writes: Don’t listen to the doomsayers

By Paul Tyler | Fri 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 …

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Nick T

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

By Nick T | Tue 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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The Voice

“Speaking rights only” for unelected peers – Hames

By The Voice | Tue 28th June 2011 - 12:27 pm

Another barnstorming speech on Lords reform, this time by Duncan Hames MP in last night’s Commons debate.

Duncan reiterates the suggestion he made earlier in the debate, that unelected peers should have speaking rights only:

Does the right hon. Gentleman think that bishops voting in the House of Lords adds in any way to the expertise they are able to offer through what they say in that Chamber, and might they find it easier to remain in that Chamber if they were to desist from taking part in Divisions?

The speech in full:

It is a privilege to follow Rory Stewart, not

…

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Mark Pack

Conservative peer wishes for return to rule by hereditary peers

By Mark Pack | Fri 24th June 2011 - 12:24 pm

It appears Baroness D’Souza has a rival in the competition for the most implausibly anti-democratic statement by a member of the House of Lords seeking to argue against them having to win any votes in order to rule over us.

Her rival is Conservative peer Baroness Hooper not only said that the 1999 reforms, which including removing several hundred hereditary peers from the Lords, had not improved the Lords but also that she wished we could return to the having hundreds of hereditaries:

As far as I am concerned, the post-1999 House of Lords is no better, no more democratic … If

…

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Mark Pack

Baroness D’Souza gives us an unusual definition of democracy

By Mark Pack | Wed 22nd June 2011 - 8:10 pm

It’s been a staple argument of despots and dictators for decades, even centuries. They’re not undemocratic you see. They’re actually far more democratic than those decadent people who rely on elections. Because democracy isn’t about elections after all, is it?

Such arguments, even when dressed up by sticking the word “democracy” into a country’s name, have rightly and widely been given short shrift. You’d have thought, therefore, that arguing that democracy doesn’t require elections would be an argument a Parliamentarian these days might steer clear of.

But no.

Step forward Baroness D’Souza:

I do not believe that elections are the only form of

…

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Helen Duffett

“It was a virtuoso performance” – Viscount Astor on Lord Ashdown on Lords reform

By Helen Duffett | Tue 21st June 2011 - 11:17 pm

Reading tonight’s Lords Hansard at bedtime (as you do), I’ve just found Paddy Ashdown’s speech from this evening’s debate on the House of Lords Reform Draft Bill.

Viscount Astor (Conservative), who spoke next, said:

My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, has just given a speech that I am sure will be used by every Liberal Democrat candidate who wishes to stand at an election to this House in the future. It was a virtuoso performance. I am afraid that my contribution will be somewhat more modest.

If you do wish to stand at a future election to the House of Lords, I’m reproducing Paddy’s speech below so you can get memorising right away.

What did Baroness Boothroyd say that Paddy found so bloodcurdling? Why would he happily exchange wisdom for legitimacy? How would history have been affected if the House of Lords had been constructed differently?

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Stephen Tall

“Delivering this is going to be very difficult” – Tory peer Strathclyde’s verdict on Lords reform

By Stephen Tall | Sat 18th June 2011 - 6:10 pm

Let’s start with the good news — Lord Strathclyde, the Tory leader in the Lords is a self-styled “long-term supporter” of reform of the Upper House. Now for the bad news — he’s pessimistic that the Coalition will actualy deliver elected senators by 2015, the deadline set by deputy prime minister Nick Clegg.

Here’s what m’Lord Strathclyde (who inherited a seat from his grandfather at the age of 25) has to say in an interview in today’s Financial Times:

“To me the dream scenario would be . . . getting in place by the end of the next session and then going forward

…

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Mark Pack

Grassroots Liberal Democrat campaign for Lords reform launched

By Mark Pack | Tue 14th June 2011 - 7:22 am

From a news release sent out by, er…, me and as featured on page two of this week’s Liberal Democrat News:

The number of Liberal Democrat peers opposing the government’s plans for elections to the House of Lords has triggered the creation of a new campaign group by grassroots activists who back the introduction of elections.

“Liberal Democrats for Lords Reform” is campaigning for Liberal Democrat peers to stick to the party’s long-standing policy of an elected Upper House.

“We’ve already been waiting over 100 years for Lords reform to be completed. It’s absurd that in the 21st century you can get

…

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Nick T

LibLink: Mark Pack – Lords reform: three tests for three party leaders

By Nick T | Sun 12th June 2011 - 8:57 am

Over on the Total Politics website, Mark Pack has a piece looking at what the coalition’s plans for reforming the House of Lords means for each of the three party leaders:

For each of them Lords reform offers both an opportunity and a threat. For David Cameron the opportunity is to push on with his mission to change the Conservative Party, modernising it in a continuing effort to shed the problems that have resulted in nearly 20 years passing since it last won an overall majority. Many in the Conservative Party, especially in the Lords, are opposed to the introduction of

…

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Mark Pack

How do you pick an expert? The flawed argument against Lords reform

By Mark Pack | Wed 8th June 2011 - 8:43 am

You need an expert. What do you do? There are plenty of different ways of going about finding one, I’m sure.

But I bet you don’t dig out the books from 20 years ago, look who was an expert back then, place the names in the hat and then pick out a name or two at random.

That, however, is how the House of Lords works – and that’s why I am unconvinced by those who argue that democracy has no place in one half of Parliament because ‘we need experts’.

Certainly there are some experts in the Lords. Just as there are …

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The Voice

LibLink | Paul Tyler: Lords’ Question Time is a “farcical free-for-all”

By The Voice | Tue 7th June 2011 - 12:42 pm

Lord Tyler writes over at e-Politix today about the way Question Time is conducted in the Lords:

As the House’s membership has increased in recent months, Question Time has become an ever more farcical free-for-all. There are a large number of Members who wish to contribute at any one time. Newcomers are rightly mystified by the absurd way in which one has to jockey for the opportunity to speak. You have to pop up and start bellowing, ‘My Lords’, in the hope that your bellow will be more thundersome than those of competing Members, or that some Lordly recognition

…

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