Part of Parliamentary Constituencies Bill – in a Public Bill Committee am 3:00 pm ar 25 Mehefin 2020.
David Linden
Shadow SNP Spokesperson (Housing, Communities and Local Government)
3:00,
25 Mehefin 2020
I am grateful that that revolutionary from Yorkshire, the right hon. Member for Elmet and Rothwell, agrees that we should abolish their lordships. The Government need to be consistent if they make the argument about cutting costs. Even this week we hear that the Prime Minister’s chief aide Eddie Lister is off to join the House of Lords, with £305 a day tax-free for the rest of his life, without ever being subject to a vote.
The House of Lords is an utterly undemocratic institution. There are only two places in the world where hereditary chieftains retain the right to make law. One is the United Kingdom and other is Lesotho. There are only three parts of the world where clerics retain the right to legislate. We have 26 bishops, the Lords Spiritual, who legislate by virtue of their religion. The other countries, of course, are Iran and the Isle of Man. If the Minister, therefore, wants, as she has said today, to talk about cutting the cost of politics, may I gently suggest that in the previous Parliament the Bill was starting at the wrong end, with the election of MPs? Perhaps if we want to cut the cost of politics we should end the circus down the other side of the building.
The house of Lords is the upper chamber of the Houses of Parliament. It is filled with Lords (I.E. Lords, Dukes, Baron/esses, Earls, Marquis/esses, Viscounts, Count/esses, etc.) The Lords consider proposals from the EU or from the commons. They can then reject a bill, accept it, or make amendments. If a bill is rejected, the commons can send it back to the lords for re-discussion. The Lords cannot stop a bill for longer than one parliamentary session. If a bill is accepted, it is forwarded to the Queen, who will then sign it and make it law. If a bill is amended, the amended bill is sent back to the House of Commons for discussion.
The Lords are not elected; they are appointed. Lords can take a "whip", that is to say, they can choose a party to represent. Currently, most Peers are Conservative.
Ministers make up the Government and almost all are members of the House of Lords or the House of Commons. There are three main types of Minister. Departmental Ministers are in charge of Government Departments. The Government is divided into different Departments which have responsibilities for different areas. For example the Treasury is in charge of Government spending. Departmental Ministers in the Cabinet are generally called 'Secretary of State' but some have special titles such as Chancellor of the Exchequer. Ministers of State and Junior Ministers assist the ministers in charge of the department. They normally have responsibility for a particular area within the department and are sometimes given a title that reflects this - for example Minister of Transport.
