Tag: House of Lords reform

House of Lords Reform Bill – speech by Bishop of Leicester

“I am sure, as are others, that this cannot be the end of the reform process for another generation.” – Bishop of Leicester

On 28th March 2014 the House of Lords debated a Bill that sought to enable Peers to retire their membership of the House, enforce retirement for non-attenders and expel those convicted of serious offences. This Private Member’s Bill, sponsored by Lord Steel and Dan Byles MP, was given widespread support during its Second Reading debate, including by the Bishop of Leicester.

LeicesterThe Lord Bishop of Leicester:  My Lords, I, too, am deeply grateful to the noble Lords, Lord Steel, Lord Cormack and Lord Norton, and other noble Lords, for bringing us to this point. Continue reading “House of Lords Reform Bill – speech by Bishop of Leicester”

Bishop of Leicester takes part in debate on role and reform of the House of Lords

On 12th December 2013, the Bishop of Leicester took part in a debate in the House of Lords, led by Lord Norton of Louth, on the size of the House of Lords.

LeicesterThe Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, this House owes a debt to the noble Lord, Lord Norton, for his assiduous work towards creating a more effective second Chamber. As usual, he has today rehearsed very clearly and effectively the case for reducing its size.

It seems to me that the challenge is clear. In spite of the speech of the noble Lord, Lord True, there is surely overwhelming agreement with the fundamental proposition that this House is too large. The question, therefore, is to find ways not just of agreeing with the principle of creating a smaller House, but to give effect to it. In that sense, this debate is part of a wider discussion upon which hangs the reputation and credibility of the political class.

Continue reading “Bishop of Leicester takes part in debate on role and reform of the House of Lords”

Archive speeches: Bishop Tom Wright – ‘The constitution is far more important than party politics.’

017 - Bishop of Durham“Voting matters, but doing the job matters even more. The belief that only elected Members can have any sort of legitimacy, or that once someone has won a vote it gives them carte blanche to do whatever they like for the next five years, rings extremely hollow when it is precisely some of the elected Members in another place who have brought the system into disrepute. Our whole political system has encouraged career politicians who have never run a farm or a shop or a school or a ship, and who lurch from utopianism, which gets most of them into politics in the first place, to pragmatic power-seeking, which is what they turn to when Utopia fails to arrive on schedule.” – Bishop of Durham, 11/6/09  Continue reading “Archive speeches: Bishop Tom Wright – ‘The constitution is far more important than party politics.’”