House of Lords now unfit for purpose – Yorkshire Post Letters

LIB Dem peer Lord Wallace of Saltaire stated (The Yorkshire Post, October 30) that the House of Lords is indefensible in its current form, and he generally appears to be quite correct.

However, the main problem is the inept collection of incumbents, consisting of failed former MPs and a selection of cronyism appointments.

This problem emanates from the ‘Lower House’. Unlike many countries, we do not pay MPs a satisfactory salary, commensurate to the job.

Therefore we attract unqualified and unprofessional applicants to Parliament, making up their income by ‘moonlighting’.

Very few MPs have any experience of a real job, and many get thrown into safe seats by their political mentors. Look at the current collection!

They bumble along staying in the Commons for eternity, and short of losing their seat, they eventually get a pointless life peerage and move up a tier.

Or, worse still, you get members that are deselected by their party, or lose a seat, and still through cronyism end up with a pointless life peerage. Several in Yorkshire come to mind in those categories.

And then, of course, we have the ridiculous situation of giving life peerages to retired civil servants, retired military, retired industrialists, has-been actors and anyone else who has fallen foul of political largesse, irrespective of their ability to run the country, or run anything.

On top of that we have a plethora of bishops interfering in secular matters – why?

Tony Blair decided to remove the vast majority of hereditary peers about 25 years ago, and by doing this, got rid of a lot of useful and worthwhile ‘Lords’ that were successful businessmen, running vast estates, employing many 
people.

Replacing them with a lot of mediocrity that hasn’t a clue, but is quite willing to take their fiscal daily attendance allowance.

The ‘Upper House’ is needed mainly as a scrutiny committee to keep their eye on the Commons, especially when there is a large majority and we run the risk of government by cabinet, not government by parliament.

However, we cannot keep shoving more and more unelected, unsuitable, unqualified members into this elite club.

There needs to be a ceiling on membership, appoint to replace through death or retirement, 
but not the current situation of each major party trying to out-do the other on membership numbers.

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