How should we tackle Lords reform?
Life peerages are a good thing. They offer the State a way to provide a tremendous reward to an individual at no cost to the taxpayer. They incentivise businessmen to donate to charity and they acknowledge major contributions to the life of the nation. By limiting the title to one generation, they do not corrupt an ancient tradition of hereditary titles.
The problem is not life peerages. It's the idea that anybody should have a seat in the legislature for life.
Effective Lords reform should separate the honours system from Parliament.
My own suggestion would be that the Conservatives should announce that life peerages no longer carried with them the right to legislate. Instead, the House of Lords would be fully elected. In order to retain the ancient and beautiful title "House of Lords", the members of that house should be called "Lords in Parliament" (LPs, cf: MPs). This honorific would be rather like a judge's, when he is called "My lord" without necessarily being one, and it would cease with the term of office.
In order not to unfairly penalise those presently in the Lords but holding life peerages, they should retain the life peerage but have to be elected to the house as LPs under the new system.
There is a case for electing LPs under a party list system, like MEPs, in order for party leaders to retain the right of patronage they currently enjoy in appointing working peers; unlike the MEP system I would suggest this be wholly at the leader's discretion. Some provision might be made separately for appointing cross-bench LPs, but that to me is a fairly minor thing to be worked out (a cross-party appointment system for one term perhaps).
The vital thing, to my mind, is that life peerages should not be abolished. Michael Howard deserves his peerage in due course as do many others. They are a great institution in British life. But nobody should have lifelong legislative power, at any level, that is never subject to the will of the electorate.
What do CR commenters think?
