1 Response

  1. Currently the House of Lords draws its membership from a limited strata of society, politicians, judiciary, clergymen, and Heredity Peers. The House of Lords must be made more representative and effective by broadening it membership.

    One purpose of the House of Lords is to improve legislation by amendment. Legislation impacts many areas where professional experts could make a valuable contribution to this task. The professional knowledge & experience of represents from chartered Institutes could provide expert insight into the consequences of legislation governing their fields.

    Each Chartered Institute would have one seat filled by election from amongst its members and elected by its members.

    http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/chartered-peers/

    Brian writes:  There are all sorts of 'experts' whose expertise could come in useful for debates in the second chamber, members of Chartered Institutes no doubt among them. But that doesn't mean that such experts should have a passport to unelected membership of the national legislature.  A wholly elected second chamber (which could be imaginatively re-named 'the Senate') is long overdue and it should be empowered to summon such experts as it likes to give evidence to it.  If some of the Chartered Institute people felt that they should be full members of it, there should be nothing to stop them standing for election to it.  Even under existing arrangements, however weird they might be, the Chartered Instituters could always become C of E bishops in their spare time and become members of the House of Lords that way.  (Just a modest suggestion for you, Martin. Oh, and by the way, 'strata' is a plural noun, so please don't write "a strata" again, OK?  And they are hereditary peers, not heredity peers. And incidentally, that sentence beginning "The professional knowledge & experience of represents from chartered Institutes could provide expert insight…" seems to have something wrong with it, doesn't it?  Then again, what do you mean, exactly, when you write about impacting areas and governing fields?  2 out of 10, maximum.  Careless work.  Must try harder — if you're going to cash in on other people's blogs again like this, eh, Martin?)