Just A Second

Rumour has it that new peerages are to be limited to 15 years, which is an absurd proposition. A time-limited peerage? Merely saying that makes the point.

I am increasingly of the view that citizens need access both to their own parliamentary representatives with the ear of the Government, and to those engaged in robust Opposition. With a six-year term (making it possible to bring that of the Commons down to four years), with the powers of the present House of Lords, and with remuneration fixed at that of the Commons, a new second chamber might guarantee that representation to everyone.

Each of the 99 lieutenancy areas would elect six Senators, with each of us voting for one candidate, and with the top six elected at the end. Casual vacancies would be filled by the party for which the previous Senator had been elected. Where the previous Senator was a Crossbencher, for by all means let that term be retained, then there would be a by-election using First Past the Post.

In each area, the Conservative Party, the Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats would be required, and other parties would be permitted, to submit their shortlists of two to a binding, publicly funded ballot of the whole electorate two weeks before the Senate Election itself.

594 Senators does sound a lot. But the 100-member Senate of the United States certainly costs more in absolute terms than this would, and probably costs more per capita. The same is no doubt true when that chamber is compared to the House of Lords. But citizens need access both to their own parliamentary representatives with the ear of the Government, and to those engaged in robust Opposition. This is how to do it.

Plus, although I am less sure about this one, something else. If the old hereditary peers were so independent, then why did they accrue so heavily to one political party, in the observance of the discipline of which they adhered rigidly to a public school honour code of never questioning "The Top People"? But there may yet be a role for intellectual and ideological, rather than for biological, heredity.

At the first ever Senate Elections, but never thereafter, let each of us, with the whole country as the electoral area, vote for one candidate, and let the 100 highest scorers be elected, complete with the right to name an heir, who would in turn be required to name a spare. That heir would not necessarily or even ordinarily be a blood relative, but rather, on political grounds, a dauphin or delfino such as Gore Vidal named Christopher Hitchens, and such as I have named James Draper.

How might we go about this? Perhaps, recalling how elected hereditary peers had been chosen, each of us might vote for someone who was at that moment a member of the Conservative Party, a member of the Labour Party, a member of the Liberal Democrats, a member of another party, and a member of no party, with the top 20 of each elected? Or perhaps a simple Hundredth Past the Post election might suffice?