House of Lords reform
The Briefing Room
BBC
4.8 • 731 Ratings
🗓️ 8 December 2022
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Earlier this week Sir Keir Starmer announced that Labour would abolish the House of Lords in its first term if he is elected prime minister. He’d replace it with a new, elected second chamber. Some Tories were quick to ridicule the idea and even some Labour peers have urged Starmer to focus on more urgent domestic reforms rather than get caught up in a ‘constitutional quagmire’.
But how would Starmer's plan work in reality and is it a good idea?
Joining David Aaronovitch in The Briefing Room are:
Professor Andrew Blick, Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at Kings College London Meg Russell, Professor of British and Comparative Politics and Director of the Constitution Unit Patrick Diamond, Associate Professor of Public Policy at Queen Mary, University of London Jess Sargeant, Senior Researcher at The Institute for Government
Producers: Ben Carter, Kirsteen Knight and Daniel Gordon Editor: Simon Watts Studio manager: James Beard Production co-ordinators: Siobhan Reed and Sophie Hill
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, podcasts. |
| 0:05.4 | I'm David Aronovich. Welcome to the briefing room, the space in the metaverse where you, me, the top experts, and a big subject, get together for 28 minutes. |
| 0:16.9 | This week, Sarkir Starner says if Labour wins the next election, it will abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected second chamber. |
| 0:26.3 | But such reforms are almost impossibly tricky. |
| 0:30.2 | Will this be any different? |
| 0:32.8 | We have been here before several times. |
| 0:36.2 | Almost everyone can agree on the need for some reform, but no one can agree on what that |
| 0:40.6 | reform should be. |
| 0:42.5 | So, first principles, why do we need a second chamber at all? |
| 0:47.0 | And why is it so hard to get consensus on what one should look like? |
| 0:51.2 | Step inside the briefing room and together we'll find out. |
| 1:02.8 | Firstly and inevitably some history. Why was the House of Lords set up in the first place? |
| 1:07.8 | What purpose was it intended to serve and what changes has it seen over the years? |
| 1:10.9 | Joining me in the briefing room is Professor Andrew Blick, |
| 1:14.7 | Professor of Politics and Contemporary History at King's College London. |
| 1:19.6 | Andrew Blick, let's go back to the beginning. When was the House of Lords actually set up and what was it supposed to be for? As is the case with lots of these things, |
| 1:24.7 | it's very difficult to establish a precise point at which anything comes |
| 1:28.5 | into being. But if we're looking to the earliest emergence of what we now call the House of |
| 1:34.8 | Lords, it's useful to think of a body called the Witten, which existed pre-conquest times. |
| 1:43.0 | It was a group of advisors that was convened by Anglo-Saxon monarchs, |
| 1:50.0 | including some of the senior people from within their kingdoms and some of their maybe senior advisors and things like that, |
| 1:58.0 | to give them advice and to ratify and to a degree legitimise their decisions and edicts. |
... |
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