The House of Lords proves its Worthlessness

[Plekhanov]

BBC

Gay rights plan suffers in Lords

Ministers' plans to give gay couples similar rights to married couples have suffered a defeat in the Lords.
The Civil Partnerships Bill gives legal rights to same-sex couples who register their partnership at a civil ceremony.

Rights include exemption on inheritance tax, plus social security and pension benefits, as well as property rights.

A Tory amendment saying the rights should be extended to relationships such as long term carers was backed by 148 to 130 in the House of Lords.

Labour peer Lord Alli said: "This amendment is ill-conceived and does nothing other than undermine the purpose of the Bill.

"This is not a Bill to do ill. This is about same sex couples whose relationships are clearly different from siblings. These are complex issues."

Queen's Speech

The government wanted to give gay couples the right to register their relationship at a civil ceremony.

The plans, announced in last year's Queen's Speech, follow a long campaign for equality for same sex partners.

The term "gay marriage" is not used in the Bill, but the Civil Partnership Registration Scheme seems to have been designed to be as close to a marriage contract as possible.

That has angered some Christian groups, who argue marriage is being undermined, but some gay rights groups say they do not go far enough.

There are also complaints that same-sex couples are now getting rights not available to unmarried heterosexual couples.

'Sacrifice'

Tory Baroness O'Cathain, who opposes the Bill, said it discriminates against families and carers who look after their elderly parents and face hefty tax bills when the relative dies.

She said: "We are told by the government this is not a gay marriage Bill but a Bill about removing injustice.

"Anyone can see that the legal rights are the same as for married couples."

She added: "This Bill sends out a message that family relationships don't matter as much as same sex relationships - that same sex couples are given a higher status than family relationships.

"This is unfair and certain to lead to blatant injustice for family members who have shown commitment and sacrifice."

'Stalking horse'

Former Ulster Unionist MP Lord Maginnis said the Bill was "dealing with couples who want to indulge in a relationship which most likely involves unnatural sexual practices".

But Lib Dem Lord Goodhart said the amendment was a "stalking horse" for opponents to recognising gay partnerships.

For the government, Home Office Minister Baroness Scotland warned that the amendment could have a regressive effect on social security benefits.

"Opening up such a formal legal relationship to family members could lead to questions about the nature of the family unit, blurring the integrity of laws prohibiting sexual relationships within families."

The government says the change makes its proposals unworkable and it intends to try to overturn the amendment.

A government source told BBC News Online: "It's clearly a wrecking amendment to progressive legislation. It's very disappointing the Tories want to scupper it."

Gay lobby group Stonewall says it is "deeply distressed" about the outcome.

The organisation's chief executive, Ben Summerskill, said: "It's a number of years since we have heard peers referring openly to 'unnatural sexual practices' and 'hijacking' of the word gay.

"Sadly, it suggests that making provisions for family carers was not the only motive for attempting to amend the Bill today."

But Tory constitutional affairs spokesman Alan Duncan said a few simple changes would make all the difference.

He accused the government of "throwing their toys out their pram".

I simply cannot believe that it’s the 21st Century and we still have a “House of Lords". It's a fucking disgrace Blair’s had nearly 2 Parliaments to replace them with an elected chamber and has instead chosen to try and pack it with cronies. The result much needed legislation is delayed again and innocent people suffer, I hope he’s proud of himself.

[Ma Deuce]

Personally, I think it should be abolished, but I can't decide wether it'd be better to replace it with a democratically elected body, or go unicarmal.

[Wicked Pilot]

I would like to comment, but I, being an American, have no clue what the House of Lords is, nor how it works. I am interested however, so can someone here enlighten me?

[kojikun]

Imagine you have the senate. Only its back to the old representation of state governments thing instead of being popularly elected. And now imagine that the state governments dont appoint senators but rather that the titles are inherited (ie, Duke, etc).

[Wicked Pilot]

Imagine you have the senate. Only its back to the old representation of state governments thing instead of being popularly elected. And now imagine that the state governments dont appoint senators but rather that the titles are inherited (ie, Duke, etc).

That sounds like suck.

[Archaic`]

Not all of them are inherited (Actually, only 92 are ATM, after the purge in 1999). Most are appointed. Such as, for example, the 26 *shudder* Lords Spiritual.

[TheDarkling]

No point having a second elected chamber, it should either stay as it is (broadly, I don't mind more appointees) or be abolished.

The advantage of the House of Lords is that they can delay bills and sometimes offer helpful amendments but they can't block them (with the exception of any bill which would extend the life of the parliament, an important constitutional power in itself). this means that anything too controversial can be delayed and brought to the publics attention by a group outside of the (elected, and thus game playing) political arena.

This is a role the Queen played over the Tory crime bill which threatened to take away several legal defence rights, the Queen stated she would be reading the bill very carefully and suddenly the media was reporting what the bill contained and people were taking to the streets in protest. In the end the Tories backed down and change the bill, the house of Lords can serve a similar function with professionals who don't have to kiss up to the electorate (or even their own party) being able to highlight dangers that others may not mention.

Another main advantage is that it is made up of professionals in many fields who actually have enough brains to ask intelligent questions, watch a Lords Committee on an issue sometime, like when they call the Chancellor for example. They ask in-depth questions that require actual professionals (in this case economists) to answer (which is why the Chancellor takes his advisors along with him), if we replaced them with an elected body we would get the same non specialists that fill the current political ranks and these in-depth questions (which I admit not many people watch, but I find them interesting in seeing government policy explained in detail and things that crop up from those meetings sometimes turn up in the mainstream media).


An argument as to the composition of the house could be made however in general people in the House of Lords are able to follow their true beliefs because they don't need votes, this means you get the most raging liberals running about as well as very social conservative people, it is slanted towards the latter and that could do with changing however I wouldn't write it off as an arm of government based on that alone.

I also wouldn't want to do away with the House of Lords out of some misplaced quest for greater democracy or because it is seen as a silly and embarrassing hang over, that is the same sort of talk that you will get from Republicans. I understand the argument, I subscribed to it (to a degree) when I was a youth, however I have since grown out of such silly notions and I can actually evaluate the various institutions on their own merits (and not based upon some drive towards ideological purity) and as such I support the continued existence of an unelected House of Lords (and the Monarchy).

[kojikun]

Oh, yes, wicked, add in 26 elected CLERGYMEN.

[kojikun]

Darkling: Perhaps the House of Lords should be replaced with a collection of elected/randomly-selected University professors and similar.

[TheDarkling]

Darkling: Perhaps the House of Lords should be replaced with a collection of elected/randomly-selected University professors and similar.

I wouldn’t want them to be elected but I wouldn’t mind it being entirely appointed with professionals in a variety of fields being chosen.

[kojikun]

Appointment would be very dangerous tho, because it gives a single person the power to decide who is in an ENTIRE body of legislation. That's risky.

[TheDarkling]

Appointment would be very dangerous tho, because it gives a single person the power to decide who is in an ENTIRE body of legislation. That's risky.

Well I would have them being appointed for life (Or until they were too old to fulfil their duties) meaning that one persons would never get to appoint all of them (also, the prime minister will accept nominations from the leaders of the other two parties as he does now).

I must also point out that the House of Lords has very little real power, they can only delay a bill for up to a year (money bills for only 1 month) at which point it will get sent off to the Queen for her approval. I would also point out that by convention the House of Lords won't oppose any bill that was proposed in the party’s manifesto lessening their power even further.

[Guardsman Bass]

Britain has essentially been a unicameral system for years(because the Lords have so little power). I say either leave it or abolish it.

[kojikun]

If the Lords buggered this thing, couldn't the Commons just tell them to piss off and pass it anyway?

[A Big Flying Fish]

If the Lords buggered this thing, couldn't the Commons just tell them to piss off and pass it anyway?

Yes, Parliament can force most (might be any but I'm not sure) bills through the House of Lords if they want.
But really the House of Lords does its job of peer review quite well. The members might typically be on the more conservative side (I don't "Gays are evil, think of the children" kind, think more, lower taxes would be nice, more police etc.), but they don't generally tend to obstruct legislature. And as far as I know, they're hardly inexperienced or unused to politics, a large number of them are former politicians, as well as professionals and a few hereditory lords left. An elected chamber would be a waste quite frankly, as its merely Parliament mark 2, except they do less. I reckon they should leave it mostly as is, filled predominantly with professionals, as they should be the ones reviewing legislature, since they're most likely the ones most suited to analysising its impact.

[kojikun]

Maybe they should just make the Lords a non-voting group ..

[Col. Crackpot]

What the fuck? You are forced to have CLERGY in your legislature? Well isn't that some shit.

[TheDarkling]

What the fuck? You are forced to have CLERGY in your legislature? Well isn't that some shit.

And yet we are still far more secular than the US, people make the country not legal efforts to shape it in a particular manner.

[Soulman]

What the fuck? You are forced to have CLERGY in your legislature? Well isn't that some shit.

And yet we are still far more secular than the US, people make the country not legal efforts to shape it in a particular manner.

Yeah, I love that. Our head of state is the head of the Church of England, we have clergy in the Lords (and people in certain positions in the church get in automatically) and yet we are still far more secular than the US with it's seperation of church and state.

[kojikun]

It's also Church of England, tho. As Eddie said, Church of England is more of a hobby, really..