Like many others, I let out a sigh of resignation when I saw that yet more appointments are being made to the unelected and unaccountable House of Lords. Nothing against the individuals receiving a peerage this week (some of whom I have known personally and all of whom I’m sure will be excellent representatives), but yet again it’s a fairly predictable mix of ex-MPs and party insiders.
Liberal Democrats are right to nominate their own choices for these positions – better off having an influence over a broken system than being excluded from it altogether – but it got me wondering why a normally ultra-democratic party is still selecting Lords nominations behind closed doors and with only nominal input from ordinary members. Isn’t there a better nomination process the party could put in place, perhaps even one which blew open positions in the House of Lords to a much more diverse body of Liberal Democrats?
I got talking to a (non-party) friend about this. She was baffled by the whole thing. So we decided between us to devise a new House of Lords nomination system for the Liberal Democrats, as you do. Admittedly this took us all of 10 minutes and didn’t even make it as far as being written down on the back of the proverbial fag packet, but I am still fairly confident it is a significant improvement over the current way things are done:
1) Nomination to the party list for the House of Lords is open to each and every Liberal Democrat member (probably self-nomination and subject to a minimum membership period).
2) The full list of nominations is then published on a dedicated webpage. It doesn’t really matter if there are 10 or 1,000 nominations – personally I would see the latter as a healthy sign.
3) The entire party membership is then able to vote for who they want from the available list, using their membership number as proof of identity.
4) The nominations with the most votes (yep, you guessed it!) are then put forward as the party’s nominations to the Lords.
No doubt this admittedly fairly simple plan can (and will) be picked apart on the detail, but it is no more flawed than the alternatives.
In practice I would expect that many high profile Lib Dems, such as ex-MPs and celebrities, would top the ballots anyway. It would, however, give ‘normal’ members the chance to put themselves forward, and would encourage more diversity in Liberal Democrat peers. Unsung heroes of the party and popular local activists would finally get their chance to be recognised and fully utilised by the party.
And whilst the loss of control by central office would initially make some nervous, why shouldn’t members be trusted to make good choices as they are for other party positions? It would also send a powerful message about democracy, and perhaps, heaven forbid, even get the party some positive headlines.
Most importantly, allowing all members to choose the party’s peers does goes back to an important principle, and the underlying reason the Liberal Democrats campaign for an elected House of Lords: the only qualification for being there should be that you are democratically elected.
Until we see a fully elected House of Lords, surely the next best option is to at least lead by example by ensuring the party’s own nomination process is as democratic and transparent as it possibly can be?
* William Summers was the party’s parliamentary candidate in 2010 for North West Norfolk and creator of www.whatthehellhavethelibdemsdone.com.
