House of Lords Bill will not solve democratic deficit

5.10.39pm BST (GMT +0100) Tue 17th Jul 2007

Former Liberal Party Leader Lord Steel of Aikwood is proposing reforms to the House of Lords.

While welcoming many of the proposed reforms in Lord Steel of Aikwood's House of Lords Bill, which receives its second reading in the House of Lords this Friday, Unlock Democracy has warned that it must not be seen as an alternative to full democratic reform of the Upper House, following the House of Commons support for either an 80% or fully elected second chamber earlier this year.

Commenting on the Bill, and topical events such as Lord Black's conviction for fraud and revelations concerning Lords giving lobbyists Parliamentary passes, Director of Unlock Democracy Peter Facey said:

"While there is little in the House of Lords Bill that one could object to, it has been made clear by Lord Steel that he sees it as an alternative to democratic reform of the Upper House. It will allow us to retrospectively remove people such as convicted fraudster Lord Black from the legislature, but will do little in practice to prevent millionaire newspaper magnates from effectively buying a seat in the first place.

"It is hard to see how a statutory appointments commission would be any less prone to favour the great and the good than the existing one does. While it is clearly no longer acceptable that party leaders should be able to impose whomever they please onto the House of Lords, simply adding a little scrutiny is not a long term solution. It should be the public, not the Lords themselves, who should be the ultimate arbiters about who should get to decide on Britain's laws.

"Lord Steel stood on a platform of democratic reform of the House of Lords in 8 General Elections, 3 of which as Liberal Party leader. This shows one of the major problems of life peerages: you can have no idea of what you end up with.

"Fundamentally, it will do nothing to tackle the problems of having members of the Lords work for lobbying organisations, as exposed in the Times today. The Government needs to announce its plans for democratic reform urgently."

The Government has announced it will publish its proposals for Lords reform before the Summer recess (i.e. before 26 July 2007).