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AdvantagesGetting Started
- Democratic legitimacy: A policy-making institutions, like the House of Lords, should be based on popular consent delivered through elections. In the liberal-democracy that the UK lives in, election is the only basis for legitimate-rule. Appointed, rather than elected, members do not hold democratic-legitimacy.
- Wider representation: Two elected chambers would wider the mirage of society, meaning that more people are better-represented in the face of UK politics.
- Better legislation: Because the HOLs is unelected, it is restricted as the 'revising chamber'. It mainly analyses the bills and proposals of the Commons rather than doing anything with them (apart from when the Parliament Act 2011 was introduced: Lords can delay a Bill up to two years). Popular authority and a legal mandate would give the second chamber more power to exercise greater legislative oversight and scrutiny of the executive.
- Checking the Commons: In order to have full-bicameralism Parliament requires two co-equal chambers: only an elected chamber can carry out checks on another elected chamber.
- Ending executive tyranny: The only way of checking government power, when the executive dominates Parliament through majority control of the Commons, is through a democratic/more powerful second chamber, one elected under PR to better represent the people and translate votes more accurately into seats.
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Disadvantages
- Specialist knowledge: Members are chosen on the basis of their life experience, expertise and specialist knowledge (i.e: Life peers). Whereas elected MPs may be experts only in the arts of public speaking and campaigning.
- Gridlocked government: Two co-equal chambers would be a recipe for instutiotnalised gridlock between both the chambers and the executive and Parliament. Most likely to occur if the two chambers are elected differently, on the basis of different times during politics (which is why Fixed-term Parliament Act 2011 was introduced) and by different electoral systems (i.e PR or FPTP).
- Complementary chambers: the two different chambers can carry out different roles and functions to make Parliament at its most effective. House of Lords: revising chamber, confirming and consenting to the proposals and bills of the lower chamber.
- Dangers of partisanship: Elected chambers are dominated by party hacks which means they do not open up their political views and do what is best for the people because they want to maintain their position as MP and are relying on that party to be elected and the re-elected. Having an appoint second chamber: reduces partisanship as Peers can think without the influence of a dominating political party.
- Descriptive representation: Elected peers may have popular authority but they do not reflect the wider society, whereas the make-up of the Commons tries to do so. The Lords could be appointed through a process which takes group representation into more account (i.e: only 6% of the Peers are from an ethnic minority background. Whereas in the Commons, it is currently 8%. Roughly 15% of the total population are ethnic minority, expected to be 30% by 2050 in the UK).
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