The disgraceful scenes on Monday of 'Baron' Kinnock donning his ermine robes and swearing his oath to the Royal Family in the House of Lords have brought passing mention in the press of the apparently forgotten issue of reform or abolition of the Lords.

I thought I'd sound out the opinion of you fine people on the role and existence of a monarchy and aristocracy in a supposedly democratic society.

I would used to have said, out with the lot of them. However of late the House of Lords seems to be passing judgements left and right that fall very firmly in the libertarian side of the political spectrum, and are just about the only thing that effectively puts a brake on Tony's excess's.

I don;'t like the idea of an appointed second house. I think we need a senate of sorts, a House of Elected Lords.

The US Senate was appointed by state legislatures until we passed an Amendment to change it.

Does Britain have local assemblies/legislatures that appoint the Lords, or are the appointed by the Crown/PM/what?

If it's like Canada, officially they're appointed by the crown, but the PM actually makes the decisions.

i thought a position in the house of lords was an inherited thing.....but then again foreign sociology and politics was never my strong point

Technically, it is inherited; but the monarch has the power to create nobles, and they have the right (if they're high enough in rank) to sit in the House of Lords. This is how the lords lost their right to veto legislation, btw; the King at the time told them they could pass the bill taking this right away, or he'd make nobles of enough supporters to pack the house and get it passed anyway. To no one's real surprise, they passed the bill.

The House of Lords used to consist of the Anglican bishops, hereditary peers, and life peers like the Law Lords whose power doesn't pass on to their children. However, Labour have abolished the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House. There was an internal election to select some current hereditary peers who could remain, but their seat does not pass to their heirs. So now we have a House consisting of some hereditary peers who won't be replaced, a potentially unlimited number of people appointed to the House for life by the Prime Minister, and 26 appointed by the Church.

On a related issue, should the taxpayer continue to subsidise the Royal Family, given recent revelations that Charles and Andrew both spend more than £20,000 to get to Sheffield or Oxford, when I can get a return for about £30-£40.

Okay, it sounds a bit silly to have a house of government entirely appointed by the PM (though I assume the seats are 'for life', if there's no limit to the membership, it becomes a place for the PM to reward loyalists and get things he wants done.) But, since the Lords don't have a veto, as Were pointed out, what role exactly does the House of Lords play in British politics? Does it serve some useful purpose, or is it just an elaborate game of dress-up for politicos?

The cases Were was talking about were for a couple of extreme circumstances; reform of the Lords itself and the People's Budget. No PM is going to appoint several hundred peers to force through every little Bill. Though they no longer have absolute veto, they can return legislation to the Commons twice, demanding changes. This can effectively veto legislation unless the government is determined, like with fox hunting.

Also, the Law Lords act a little bit like your Supreme Court; it was the Lords that ruled Labour's detentions without trial were a violation of human rights.

Did they? Darn, I missed that. Omit the BBC for a while; see what it gets you.

Don't feel too bad, Were - they can still stand in the House, as long as they're quiet and don't try to vote.

So if they are appointed by the PM once the heridary ones are died out, their practical effect would be to hinder a goverment that came to power recently. If the goverment is in power for a while, it will have a house of lords of the same ideology already.

I don't think this is particulary necessary if anything you need something to make life harder for a goverment that is in power since a long time.

On 2 chambers in general: I don't think 2 chambers that are appointed according the same system or one being appointed by the other makes lots of sense. You just get the same powerblocks in roughly the same power there. It might make some sense if you have highly regional parties to have one chamber representing regions and the other the nation as whole but that would rather be an exception.

That's actually a good idea, arcosh. My one worry about proportional representation hasvalways been that fact it would destroy the regional parties the more fully you applied it. This way, we could have a purely proportional Commons, and a constituency based second house, solving both problems.

Just an update for anyone who's interested - a bill's coming in to make 70% of the Upper House directly elected. It's got cross-party support and looks like it can probably pass the Commons. Whether it'll get through the Lords in the next few years is a different matter.