High Peak Liberal Democrats

Tim Farron MP writes…Liberal Democrats will work with anyone to reform the House of Lords

Yesterday, the news was released about the latest tranche of appointments to the House of Lords. The Liberal Democrat peers will be, as they always have been, constructive and conscientious. Where we agree with the government we shall support them and where we don't we shall work to amend and if needs be oppose. But the principle matters, Liberal Democrat peers were appointed on the pledge 'to abolish themselves'.

The Lords has two functions. To revise and to hold the Executive to account. The first it does quite well, the second it does not at all - how can it when, by definition, it is a creature of the Executive?

The Lords is wholly undemocratic and will never have the legitimacy it needs for a healthy democracy until this is changed.

Every party in their manifestos hints at reform or abolition of the second chamber, but the Liberal Democrats are the only party committed to it. So today we recommit our party - and its new Peers - to working actively for the reform of the House of Lords and ideally its abolition in favour of an elected second chamber. We urge the other parties to join us in this effort.

There is a simple reason for this and it is called democracy; the people's laws should only be made by those whom the people have elected. They should not be made by cronies appointed by the Prime Minister.

We Liberal Democrats attempted to bring about reform in the last Parliament. But it was scuppered by a lack of political will by both Tory and Labour leaderships in the Commons, loudly applauded by their backwoodsmen in the Lords.

Now is the time to try again. This time, we call on them to join us and make our second chamber fit for purpose as part of a modern democratic system. The Liberal Democrats stand ready to work with anyone, in any party, to create a wholly, or at the very least, mainly elected second chamber. Our new Peers in the Lords will add weight to our voice and our ability to make this happen.

The Lords was already the largest legislative assembly in the world outside of China and costs taxpayers around £100 million a year to run - even before yesterday's announcement. There are 56 two-chamber Parliaments in the world. The overwhelming majority are properly elected. Britain, in the dubious company of Belize, Burkina Faso, Fiji and Trinidad and Tobago, is one of the disgraceful exceptions.

We send our soldiers abroad to fight (and sometimes die) for democracy. But we do not yet even have it fully in our own Parliament.The time to put this right is now. To delay further in the face of recent abuses would be an affront to our democracy and to our country.

* Tim Farron is Leader of the Liberal Democrats, MP for Westmorland and Lonsdale and a former President of the Liberal Democrats.

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Coment - Darren Wheatcroft - Mid Derbyshire

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I agree with Tim Fallon about the need to reform the upper chamber. It is a disgrace that the majority of Lords are appointed by the government of the day, which can skew policy making for years after the government has been voted out.

What I don't agree with is the need for it to be elected. The fact that they aren't elected is a huge advantage over the commons. The majority of them (until recently) are 'actual people' - Melvin Bragg, Floella Benjamin, Lord Sugar for three- who have actually achieved things in the real world outside of Westminster. This was the advantage of the Lords. Yes, there were a number of ex-politicians - some of them extremely experienced at lawmaking - but on the whole the Lords worked (even Hereditary Peers) for the benefit of the country blunting knee-jerk legislation with common sense and experience.

It has changed to be a cronyist chamber, but surely that can be reformed by taking the decision out of the hands of the government completely, rather than wasting more money on elections that really - nobody will care about.

To have yet another round of elections, on top of the already apathetic responses to European and Parliamentary elections we have had, will introduce voter fatigue, more apathy, and a greater influence of career politicians who come to Parliament straight from university and spend their entire working lives climbing the greasy pole.

Not all of Camerons appointees have been bad choices, but this is where reform needs to be targeted. Not more pointless elections that divorce the Government from the People.

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