Following the House of Commons votes in favour of an elected House of Lords, Ming Campbell said:
“After nearly 100 years the House of Commons has at last taken the momentous step to reform the upper house and make it fit for a modern democracy. This is a famous victory for progressive opinion both in Parliament and in the country.”
The Party’s evidence in 1999 for the Wakeham commission stated [para 70] ” … the electorate will prefer to have a wholly elected Senate.” I wrote [115/ 99] to the then Leader saying that Constituencies need not, and should not, have geographical bases akin to those for the Commons which might be seen as infringing their rights.
The second chamber needs to to be able to call on specialist knowledge and opinions covering the whole field of potential legislation. But it also needs to have universal franchise and must not be seen as a quango of eletists. I suggest the way to do this is to construct new Constituencies covering the whole range of human activities, businesses, charities, enterprises, hobbies, pensioners, sports and so forth. Each would need to have a representative body such as a Trade Union, a Professional Organisation or a Society with enough members to qualify for a seat in the Lords. Smaller groups would no doubt band together in order to achieve the minimum size. Individuals would have to choose the organisation within which they wished to vote. As a gardener, pensioner, scientist and yachtsman I could still only have one vote!
The equivalent of the Boundary Commission would need to ensure that the number of approved groups was equal to the proposed number of seats in parliament. Members of the Societies would put their names forward for election much as is now done for the Commons with ballot papers and, presumably, a transferable vote system.
To me the key issue is that members should sit for rolling 7 year terms with an absolute ban on re-standing.
That way there is no conflict of interest between voting for what you believe is right and building support within your party grouping for advancement and re-selection.