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Lords Reform: less than half of crossbenchers are experts

Author: James Graham

Lords Reform: less than half of crossbenchers are experts

Just 46% of crossbench peers - 11% of the House of Lords overall - can be regarded as experts in their field, according to figures released by Unlock Democracy this week.

The research forms part of Unlock Democracy’s submission to the joint committee on the draft House of Lords reform bill.  Over 4,100 people took part in Unlock Democracy’s own participation exercise, including over 2,500 people who opted to make a submission in their own words.

Unlock Democracy supports the broad thrust of the government’s proposals, but takes issue with in it some areas of detail.  Highlights of Unlock Democracy’s submission include:

  • The second chamber should be fully elected, preferably using the Single Transferable Vote system.
  • 150 members of the second chamber should be elected every five years on the same day as European Parliamentary elections, for ten year terms of office (ideally this will be reduced to eight year terms every four years subject to an amendment to the Fixed Term Parliaments Act).  Members of the second chamber should be able restand for one more term of office.
  • Government ministers should not sit in the second chamber so that there is a clear distinction in roles and powers between the two chambers;
  • Members of the second chamber should be barred from standing for the House of Commons for a lengthy period;
  • There should be no places reserved for religious representatives in the second chamber.

You can read our submission by following this link (PDF): http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/lords-reform-submission

You can explore our database of members of the House of Lords by following this link (Google Docs): http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/peers-database

Unlock Democracy also submitted all the responses it received from individuals in a separate 5,409 page document.

Our thanks to everyone who participated in this exercise and to our volunteer researchers Jon Ward, John Franglen and Jack Maizels who helped compile our House of Lords database.

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