[andrewb]

A sad day I do believe. The lords are to be 100% elected.

The Lords are now going to be subject to much more party politics. Currently they can vote without worrying about being deselected, so they can make unpopular decisions if they think they're right. They don't have to follow the party line in the slightest, and no one party has an overall majority so they can't win votes just by having a big number in the house, hence bills are reformed, for the better usually, as the Lords usually spot something the Commons has missed and make amendments using their wise collective minds.

Currently Lords are selected by the Prime Minister but are appointed through an independent body, which helps prevent cash for peerages and such. It helps ensure the people that become Lords deserve to become lords.

In an elected house it has been suggested that they use a closed list system, which means the public vote for a party, and the party has a list, then depending on how many votes they get, results in the number of people from the list become MP's. This will guarantee people at the top of the list a place in the Lords, so the party could put anybody they like, including people they want to make a Lord as a favor at the top of the list. At least this is how I understand it.

The 100% elected second house but with less powers raises questions of the commons supremacy. Not to mention the enormous cost to the tax payer as currently only a small selection of Lords are paid (ones who have specialist duties in the house), where as under an elected system I imagine they will get paid similar to MP's which is 60thousand. That times 500/600/700 peers is a lot of money, especially when you start to throw in expenses.

A lot of money, for a completely unnecessary purpose, I would argue.