... back in the days when only viscounts and earls were allowed into the second chamber, when it truly was an upper house, there would have been no risk of such squalid scandal. Aristocrats, cushioned by their private income, would have waved aside the offer of a paltry £120,000 per annum as barely enough cash to polish the family silver.These days those ancient defences against corruption have, alas, been washed away.
Bagehot is back in fashion, I notice. Chris Huhne said in Parliament not long ago that the House of Commons is no longer in the efficient part of the constitution, but the dignified part - a brilliant adaptation of Bagehot. And Jonathan Freedland here makes an implicit reference to Bagehot's view that the old, hereditary nineteenth-century House of Lords was incorruptible because it consisted of those who would corrupt others, not themselves be vulnerable to corruption.
I certainly agree that the rules applicable to the Commons should apply equally to the Lords - that much is obvious, and there should also be reform to ensure that corrupt members can be suspended or expelled.
More broadly, though, my own recipe for Lords reform would be to have a chamber of 100 members elected by proportional representation under a list system, simply reflecting votes in the last general election. I'd retain the rule that members of the House were barred from standing for the Commons for ever; that way you could ensure the Lords was not yet another breeding-ground for would-be ministers and politicians of the same mould as are found everywhere else where politics is done. I'd also retain appointed Lords, so that experts of all kinds could speak - but I'd take away their right to vote. In fact, it might be an idea to give the appointed experts, elder statesmen and so on a monopoly on speaking (except for set-piece short speeches and questions from front-benchers), and the proportionate placemen a monopoly of voting.
Just an idea.
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