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To: MPs
A better second house for parliament
I propose we have the House of Lords replaced with people that are randomly selected from the population in the manner of a jury and can remain for a single term.
Why is this important?
Labour has said it will scrap the House of Lords and replace it with a second, elected house. This will not add anything to parliament, it will just add another layer of establishment figures that passed through private schools, did PPE at Oxbridge and will move into directorships when finished.
The selection could be one member per constituency or several per county or some other geographical boundary.
We need a second house populated by people that didn't get into power by knowing someone important or buying their way in. The MPs/PM must have no possibility of influencing the make-up of the new house. There must be no incentive for new members to use their time to attach themselves to the establishment.
This will most likely lead to women, ethnic minorities, the poor, the unemployed, the disabled, those that didn't go to public school, etc being proportionately represented.
If they need advice on points of law they can use the same methods the MPs use (civil service, advisors, etc).
The second house should be able to send ill thought out legislation back to the MPs for revision. In addition it should be able to propose legislation for MPs to debate.
We currently have nobody in either house that knows what it's like to live in poverty and have no network of rich friends to fall back on. This should redress the balance. It will prevent the new house being populated by those who want power (and therefore become corrupted by it)
If anyone selected doesn't want to stand (or has to leave) they can be replaced by a further random selection. Selection would be very cheap - eg picking a random national insurance number. No-one can be a member of the new house for more than one session. The session should last the same amount of time as the MPs session (5 years) but could possibly be offset by two and a half years to prevent MPs from 'buying off' the members in any way for a parliamentary session.
The new house would be located outside of London if a physical location is necessary and would allow for remote meeting (eg telecommuting) for as much time as the new house deems necessary.
