From: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.british
Subject: Re: buying peerage
Date: 9 Sep 92 16:42:57 GMT
Reply-To: anw@maths.nott.ac.uk (Dr A. N. Walker)
Organization: Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.

In article <1992Sep8.225728.316@dscomsf.desy.de>
Hallam@zeus02.desy.de writes:
[about the HoL delaying tactic]
>This applies only to bills, orders in council can in general be recinded by a
>motion in either house. since the main method of legislation by the Thatcher
>government was enabling bill followed by orders in council [...]

	In other words, the Thatcher government *chose* to govern in a way
that *could* be vetoed by their buddies upstairs.  Big deal.  Presumably,
an incoming Labour (or other) government could choose to govern in the
old-fashioned way and avoid the veto, or could produce an Act restricting
the application of the veto to orders.

>		       This effectively means a complete veto over all business
>in the last year of a parliament.

	In such a case, the veto is likely to be a major issue in the
election campaign.  A government which tries to push through deeply
unpopular business in haste just before an election is being just as
silly as an opposition that uses its [assumed] majority in the HoL to
block popular business.  In other words, it's not likely to happen in
the real world short of a major constitutional crisis that indeed has
to be resolved by an election.

>When parliamentary time is the major factor determining the passage of many
>bills a veto can in fact prevent a clause from getting to the statute book

	But this doesn't happen either.  The time has mostly already been
spent in getting the bill through the HoC in the first place.  When the HoL
uses its "veto", one of three things happens:  (a) the bill really was a bit
silly, and it is quietly dropped;  (b) the bill was basically OK but the HoL
has found some serious problem, and it gets batted to and fro [usually
quite quickly] until it is acceptable to both Houses;  (c) the HoC decides
to push the bill through regardless, in which case they wait the statutary
year and then bung it through unchanged in a few minutes flat.  In no case
is there a serious waste of parliamentary time.  There are many reasons
why legislation that runs into difficulties can get bogged down for lack
of time;  the HoL "veto" isn't one of them.

>The House of Lords does an important job - badly. There is no place for
>superanuated buffoons whose reason for being entitled to vote rests on their
>brown nosing or on the brown nosing of their ancestors.

	I agree that the HoL consists of rotten people doing a rotten job;
until you consider the possible alternatives.  If not the brown noses, then
who?  If elected representatives, then you must face the probability that
they will often be of different complexion from the government.  Whether
or not they have "real" power, you then have a recipe for constitutional
crisis, with both sides screaming about mandates, and fixes -- as we see
occasionally in France and in the USA when the President is at loggerheads
with the Senate [or whatever].  The advantage of having people who know
that they have no real right to be there is that in a crisis they have to
back down and keep a low profile.  This means that when they do stand up,
they're probably pretty serious about it.

-- 
Andy Walker, Maths Dept., Nott'm Univ., UK.
anw@maths.nott.ac.uk