The House of Lords should be replaced with a Senate of the regions

The argument

This argument holds that the problem with the House of Lords is twofold: it is undemocratic, in that no voter chose its members, and it is unrepresentative, in that its members do not resemble the country over which they exercise influence. The second charge is made with figures. Nearly a quarter of peers are over the age of eighty. The chamber contains low numbers of women and of ethnic minority peers. Most of its members are independently wealthy. More than half claim residency in London and the South East. Read together, these describe a body skewed on every axis at once — by age, by sex, by ethnicity, by wealth and by geography — and skewed in each case toward the same narrow segment of the population. The geographic concentration is treated as particularly significant, since a chamber intended to scrutinise legislation affecting the whole of the United Kingdom draws the majority of its membership from one corner of it. The remedy proposed is replacement rather than abolition, on the grounds that a second chamber performs a function worth keeping. The Lords should be replaced with an elected Senate made up of members drawn from every nation and region, as part of wider reforms making Parliament more reflective of a modern democracy. The regional basis addresses the representative defect directly, and election addresses the democratic one. What election would additionally supply is authority. A chamber whose members hold no mandate is poorly placed to challenge a government that does, which is why the Lords has been left with influence but not standing. An elected Senate would carry the legitimacy and the mandate to challenge the government of the day — which is why, on this argument, the House of Lords should be reformed rather than simply removed.

Premises

Counter-arguments

The House of Lords continues to perform an important role scrutinising government legislation. It's membership, predominately experts, ensures that it can properly assess the technical merits of different pieces of legislation. While the life appointment of its members ensures that the Lords is removed from partisanship and sits outside of the narrow debates found in the House of Commons. Replacing the House of Lords with an elected Senate would run the risk of simply replicating the House of Commons and removing any expertise. With both chambers claiming electoral mandates, it could lead to the kind of political deadlock that is frequently found in Congress in the United States of America.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P2] This would defeat the purpose of the House of Lords.