Lib Dems plan to force vote on replacing Lords with elected upper chamber
Lib Dems plan to force vote on replacing Lords with elected upper chamber
Party wants to amend government’s bill that would end tradition of hereditary peers to make reforms go further
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Sortition for the HoL or it's a waste of time.
I love that idea actually. Basically a lottery where you can randomly become a Lord for a couple of years, draw the salary, then go back to your regular life.
It’s a great idea until you remember the English populace and their voting history.
I think keep the HoL (but maybe rename it), abolish peerages, have a fixed term, keep the appointment commission but have half of the members of that sortified.
And what happens to people that earn more than a MP? Lots of qualified people earn more than than a MP, so they would need to self exclude, develop political aspirations that would make up the loses (read consider corruption), or sacrifice their personal wellbeing to serve in parliament.
They could refuse, continue doing their job on the side, or just take the temporary pay cut to enjoy a close to do nothing job for a few years. I don't think that's anything to be concerned about. An MP gets over £90000 plus expenses, that's triple the median salary. If those that earn more want to self select themselves out of power, they can definitely do that. That's only about 4% of the population.
IMO sortition with a minority of appointed cross-bench experts is the ideal solution. The cross benchers are generally excelent and worth keeping.