An Elected Second Chamber

I have been asked, in an anonymous comment on an earlier post, whether I am in favour of an elected second chamber.

Well, I never used to be. Such a chamber would be a challenge to the authority of the House of Commons. Attlee made do perfectly well without it, and it might well have made his government’s life very difficult. There are so much more important things to do. A replacement “elected” from closed party lists is too hideous to contemplate. And the House of Lords does a much better job than does the House of Commons when it comes to including women, ethnic minorities, people with a diverse range of views, people from working-class backgrounds, and people with really strong links to the North, the Midlands, the West Country or East Anglia.

But I have come to see that the House of Commons needs a challenge to its authority: a challenge to it to exercise that authority. I wish that the present House of Lords could be empowered to do the things that I am going to set out, but, alas, that is no longer politically feasible. We need a Senate which can indeed be so empowered.

Empowered to exercise the current functions of the Lords in relation to the Commons, but also to exercise those same functions in relation to the devolved bodies in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Empowered to propose amendments to Money Bills, for acceptance or otherwise by the Commons.

Empowered to question any Minister (ordinarily by means of regular Question Time sessions), with no Minister drawn from it. Empowered to compel the Commons to vote on any EU legislation previously nodded through on the pestilential principle of “negative resolution”. And empowered to require a referendum on any Constitutional Bill as already identified for procedural purposes by the Speaker of the House of Commons.

The main electoral units would be the 99 areas having Lords Lieutenants (and conveniently called different things in each of the four parts of the United Kingdom). These differ enormously in population, but that is perfectly normal for the units employed to elect second chambers. Electors would vote for one candidate (who would themselves have to be electors in the constituency) by means of an X, and the top five would be declared elected at the end, giving 495 in all.

Lest it be alleged that this would create at least 352 utterly safe seats, including all 30 seats in Northern Ireland, parties would select their candidates by the means that I have set out in the past: the two nominees of the most branches (including of affiliated organisations in Labour’s or any of its successors’ case) would be put to a binding ballot of all registered voters in the constituency. Candidates thus selected would be excused the need to secure nomination by five per cent of the electorate, the requirement that would otherwise replace the deposit for this and all other elections.

Furthermore, preserving the vitally necessary Cross Bench element, each elector would have the right to nominate up to one Independent candidate. In Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, and each of the nine English regions, the eight candidates (themselves registered electors there) with the most such nominations would be put to an election as above: vote for one candidate, and the top five will be declared elected at the end. In like manner, the whole country would elect 10 Cross Benchers from a list of 15. There would thus always be at least 70 Cross Benchers.

Finally, with what to replace the bishops? Are the bishops there to embody the nation’s Christian heritage, an undeniable fact and with which seventy-two per cent of Britons identified at the last census? Or are they there to embody the population’s moral and spiritual values, a their predecessors undoubtedly did when they were first called to Parliament? People are never going to agree on this one, so we should give effect to both aspirations.

Scotland, Northern Ireland, the North East, the North West, Yorkshire and The Humber, and the East Midlands would comprise the Northern Area; Wales, the West Midlands, the South West, the South East, the East of England, and Greater London would comprise the Southern Area. In each area, people would vote for up to one (strictly non-partisan) candidate to embody the nation’s Christian heritage, and for up to one (strictly non-partisan, presumably non-Christian) candidate to embody moral and spiritual values in general. In each category and area, the top six (of the 10 with the most nominations) would be declared elected.

This gives an overall total of 589 Senators. The term of office would be a fixed six years, and the pay and expenses would be fixed at those of MPs. With the powers set out above, this Senate would be well worth having. Without any one or more of them, it would not be.