House of Lords Reform: Lord Speaker’s Committee
Debate between Mike Amesbury and Gavin Newlands(6 years, 6 months ago)
Westminster HallRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Westminster Hall is an alternative Chamber for MPs to hold debates, named after the adjoining Westminster Hall.
Each debate is chaired by an MP from the Panel of Chairs, rather than the Speaker or Deputy Speaker. A Government Minister will give the final speech, and no votes may be called on the debate topic.
This information is provided by Parallel Parliament and does not comprise part of the offical record
Mike Amesbury (Weaver Vale) (Lab)
Would it be progress, and a sign of a mature democracy that would engage people more in the democratic process, if we had a fully elected second Chamber and abolished the House of Lords?
Gavin Newlands
I could not agree more. That is the point almost every contributor has made thus far, apart from the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire. It is obviously a given that, in 2017, we should not appoint any unelected member to a legislative body.
To be honest, as somebody who has been campaigning for Scottish independence since I was nine years old, I never feel more strongly about independence than when I view the farce on the day of the Queen’s Speech. I have always viewed the Lords as a kind of pumped-up parliamentary panto, and seeing all that ermine and fancy dress, and the Lord Chancellor playing Widow Twanky, is embarrassing in the extreme in 2017. I believe that the Lord Speaker’s report was probably as much as we could have expected, given his position and his narrow remit, but it falls spectacularly short of what any developed western democracy should be aiming for.