NEWS of the forthcoming selection of a new member of the House of Lords by just three fellow members of the unelected chamber will not sit well most voters, who probably think, with good reason, that such a process is a relic from the 19th century.
Reform of the House of Lords is very much unfinished business and the leaving of fewer than 100 hereditary peers in place when Tony Blair’s Labour Government introduced the shake-up in the late 1990s was only ever intended as a stop-gap to ensure the changes were passed quickly.
The failure to finish off the job and abolish all hereditary peers has left in place an outdated system that smacks of patronage in that it allows party grandees to hand a seat in the UK legislature to unelected politicians, who are then free to enjoy the pomp and privileges that go with it.
Those calling for the end of such a system do so with good reason, but surely this particular outdated process used to hand someone a place in parliament shows that it’s now time to remove the House of Lords as an entity.
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Callum Baird, Editor of The National
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