Update on House of Lords Reform Bill Committee…

As I’m sure my avid readers are aware I am a member of the Committee which is reviewing the House of Lords Draft Reform Bill. We have been meeting for 6 months now and one of the prominent issues which has arisen is how each region and nation electing senators for the new second chamber will affect the power of the second chamber. The Government is suggesting that the senators to this chamber will be elected for 15 years but they will not able to stand for re-election. This raises the question of whether they will be truly accountable. Equally if both Houses of Parliament are elected, there is much more scope for gridlock with the two Houses disagreeing with each other as we have seen can happen in America –the Committee is therefore looking at ways of avoiding this problem. The committee has two more months of deliberation, by which time these difficult problems will have had to have been fully explored, if not resolved.