Truss It Up

There was little wrong with the old House of Lords, and there is little wrong with the present one. But it is still a shame that the Constitutional Renewal Bill has been dropped. Properly drafted, a British Senate could have been at least a partial remedy against the scandalous abuses most lately on display in South-West Norfolk.

Each of the 99 units that are the English ceremonial counties, the Scottish lieutenancy areas, the Welsh preserved counties and the Northern Irish counties should elect the same number of Senators. Four? Five? Six? How big do we want the Senate to be? For the sake of argument, let’s say six per county. Each of us would vote for one candidate, and the top six would be declared elected at the end. Another six, who would have to be Crossbenchers, would be elected in the same way by the country as a whole. Certain newspaper columnists and others could be told to put up or shut up. They would in any case be glad to put up.

Party candidates should be selected by submitting the shortlist of two to a ballot of all registered voters in the county. As ever with primaries, there would be nothing to stop unsuccessful candidates, or anyone else, from putting up as Independents. There should be a residency requirement: candidates for the Senate should have to have been registered voters in the county (or, perhaps, one immediately adjacent) throughout the previous 10 years. And while Ministers should have to appear regularly before the Senate in order to answer its questions, Senators should be banned from being Ministers. It would thus be possible to build a career specifically as a legislator.

And we should ban parties that contest Commons elections from contesting Senate ones. This would allow new formations to emerge, and locate them within the parliamentary process. An economically and socially libertarian, internationally neocon party, if you must, although I’m not sure that anyone would vote for it. But also a High Tory paleocon party, an Old Labour Left party, an Old Liberal party (quite possibly the old Liberal Party, which still exists), a party for us Old Labour High Tories, and others. With none ever having a Senate majority.