Should we have a second chamber made up of randomly selected members of the public?

[birchesgreen]

If you get the average person into parliament you'd have capital punishment for stealing turnips on the statute book by Xmas.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If you get the average person into parliament you'd have capital punishment for stealing turnips on the statute book by Xmas.

This is why I suggested it as a second chamber, which would act as a sanity check on laws made by the present House of Commons rather than having it make laws itself.

 

[MotCO]

So we generally have a party with a majority of seats in the Commons, but to get legislation through it will have to convince an upper house which can argue that (through PR) it has a better mandate than the Commons. But if the Commons are determined to force their legislation through, then it's open to them to call further General Elections, which as above will replace the membership of the upper house a third at a time. Or to put it another way, the electorate will have the chance to vote on whether the Commons are right. And calling an extra election is a high bar to clear - just ask Brenda from Bristol.

How would this proposal deal with the Brexit issues which bedevilled the last parliament? The lower house had the madate to withdraw from Europe, so why would it need to call an election if the upper house refused to support it? Likewise, they would need to repeal the (stupid) Fixed Term Parliament Act, otherwise they could not call an election without the support of the opposition.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

How would this proposal deal with the Brexit issues which bedevilled the last parliament? The lower house had the madate to withdraw from Europe, so why would it need to call an election if the upper house refused to support it?

The upper house would also have a mandate, having been elected itself. The lower house could override this by calling an election and changing the makeup of the upper house. If the lower house weren't convinced that the people would support them, then the lower house would have to think again about whether what they wanted to do was what they should do. That is, moving to a more powerful, elected upper house is a conservative proposition as it would make change more difficult.

Likewise, they would need to repeal the (stupid) Fixed Term Parliament Act, otherwise they could not call an election without the support of the opposition.

I'm not sure that this is a problem. (1) Acts get repealed the whole time, and (2) the Fixed Term Parliament Act doesn't seem to have stopped early general elections being called: of the 3 GEs since it was passed, only one (the first one) has been at the end of a five year term.

 

[MotCO]

the Fixed Term Parliament Act doesn't seem to have stopped early general elections being called: of the 3 GEs since it was passed, only one (the first one) has been at the end of a five year term.

Yes, but Corbyn was initially refusing to let Boris call an early election, so there was complete stasis. Corbyn eventually relented, but it could have been avoided.

 

[edwin_m]

How would this proposal deal with the Brexit issues which bedevilled the last parliament? The lower house had the madate to withdraw from Europe, so why would it need to call an election if the upper house refused to support it?

The lower house only had a mandate because of the deceptions that led to the referendum result, the vagaries of FPTP and the mistakes made by opposition parties in autumn 2019. As I keep pointing out, polls showed that Brexit didn't have majority public support after autumn 2017. Having an upper house that could really apply the brake to that proposal would have been a clear benefit, but the Lords is limited in doing so because it is unelected so feels it lacks legitimacy.

 

[MotCO]

As I keep pointing out, polls showed that Brexit didn't have majority public support after autumn 2017.

The only poll that matters is a General Election, and Brexit was roundly supported in December 2019.

 

[najaB]

The only poll that matters is a General Election, and Brexit was roundly supported in December 2019.

I don't recall there being a separate referendum question on Brexit in addition to the election for members of Parliament.

 

[MotCO]

I don't recall there being a separate referendum question on Brexit in addition to the election for members of Parliament.

There wasn't - it was part of the Manifesto of the Conservatives which won the greatest number of constituencies.

 

[najaB]

There wasn't - it was part of the Manifesto of the Conservatives which won the greatest number of constituencies.

As you said it was part of the Manifesto - how do we know that people who voted Conservative did so because of that specific part of the manifesto? (Answer: we don't).

 

[edwin_m]

And more people voted for parties opposing Brexit than supporting it, admittedly somewhat two-facedly in the case of Labour, so if we'd had a proportional system then it might have been voted down by a more representative Parliament. FPTP may lead to strong government, but if it's strong government that goes too often against the will of the people then ultimately it denies democracy and creates huge resentment.

 

[ainsworth74]

Please, dear god, can we not have a Brexit debate on this thread?

 

[DynamicSpirit]

The premise is that "people who want to govern aren't suitable for it" (sort-of) - so should we replace the Lords with a second chamber made up of randomly selected members of the public in the manner of Jury Service?

In my view, the premise is fundamentally wrong. In general, wanting to do something tends to be a positive, not a negative, for doing that thing. Would you want - say - Doctors selected on the basis that the only people who you'll allow to become doctors are people who don't actually want to do the job? I suspect not. Ditto pilots, computer programmers, teachers, or just about anything else. And the reason is obvious. If you want to do something then you're probably going to put in a lot more effort to do that thing well, and learn how to do the job properly. So why should it be any different for MPs, politicians, and people in the Government? Answer... obviously it isn't. And if you put people in - say - the Lords - who don't actually want to be doing that job, the inevitable result will be lots of people making only very half-hearted efforts to do all the scrutiny etc. required of the job, and an almost completely ineffective second chamber. (Jury service is somewhat different because it's a very temporary thing - easier to get someone to do something they aren't that interested in for a couple of days than for a couple of years. But even so, I believe there are concerns about - in some cases - Juries as non-experts returning the wrong verdict because they simply don't have the background with which to understand the evidence being presented)

Back to the second chamber and - worse - since everyone under these proposals would be sitting as an independent, without any caucuses to encourage any discipline, shared values or ethical behaviour, it would become very easy for the Government to secure 2nd chamber votes with US-style pork-barrel politics ('vote for this legislation and we'll provide a bit of funding for that new park that happens to be near your house').

Also consider that MPs and councillors are currently voted in through a system that involves them being selected to stand by their local parties - a process that usually requires hustings, internal campaigning and so on within each political party. That's not a perfect process, but it does provide a good filter to ensure that candidates are actually literate, have some understanding of politics and of our society, some ability to listen to and think about other points of view, and have some minimum level of intelligence. If you are selecting members of the public at random, then you are going to end up with a fair few people who simply do not have the academic/intellectual ability (or interest) to understand or scrutinize legislation.

 

[najaB]

In my view, the premise is fundamentally wrong. In general, wanting to do something tends to be a positive, not a negative, for doing that thing.

People who want power usually can't be trusted with it.

 

[edwin_m]

In my view, the premise is fundamentally wrong. In general, wanting to do something tends to be a positive, not a negative, for doing that thing. Would you want - say - Doctors selected on the basis that the only people who you'll allow to become doctors are people who don't actually want to do the job? I suspect not. Ditto pilots, computer programmers, teachers, or just about anything else. And the reason is obvious. If you want to do something then you're probably going to put in a lot more effort to do that thing well, and learn how to do the job properly. So why should it be any different for MPs, politicians, and people in the Government? Answer... obviously it isn't. And if you put people in - say - the Lords - who don't actually want to be doing that job, the inevitable result will be lots of people making only very half-hearted efforts to do all the scrutiny etc. required of the job, and an almost completely ineffective second chamber.

That ought to be true in politics too, and frequently is but sometimes isn't. Populists propose policies primarily to get themselves elected regardless of whether they believe their policies are best for the country. There is the overlapping category of would-be dictators who aim to use their power to shut down the democratic process and implement policies that the public would probably reject if they had the chance.

Why do they do this? Perhaps some combination of corruption (using power to enrich themselves and cronies), status anxiety (wanting to prove they are better than rivals) and self-belief (their chosen solution is best for the country but democracy gets in the way of putting it into effect). You probably get these to some extent in other professions (I used to know someone who so good at selling themselves that they got appointed to a whole string of jobs and were mostly useless at each one) but politics presents unique opportunities for all three motivations.

Also consider that MPs and councillors are currently voted in through a system that involves them being selected to stand by their local parties - a process that usually requires hustings, internal campaigning and so on within each political party. That's not a perfect process, but it does provide a good filter to ensure that candidates are actually literate, have some understanding of politics and of our society, some ability to listen to and think about other points of view, and have some minimum level of intelligence. If you are selecting members of the public at random, then you are going to end up with a fair few people who simply do not have the academic/intellectual ability (or interest) to understand or scrutinize legislation.

Sometimes that's the problem in itself. Look at how both Labour and the Conservatives have in recent years replaced policies and people that could appeal to a broad electorate with those that were aligned with the much more extreme views of the activist members.

 

[Bletchleyite]

People who want power usually can't be trusted with it.

I don't know if I'd go as far as "usually", but I certainly would say "often".

 

[WelshBluebird]

The problem with basing something on "the average person" and then randomly selecting people to fill that gap is that there will always be ~50% of people in the population dumber / more lazy / more incapable than that average person so its basically pot luck if you get someone competent or not.

I guess in theory that would statistically cancel itself out assuming the people selected were truly random, but based on some of the people I know and how quickly some have fallen for the QAnon / 5G etc conspiracy theories - there is no way I'd want any of those people anywhere near any house of Parliament!!

 

[DynamicSpirit]

People who want power usually can't be trusted with it.

But, even if that was true, someone has to do those jobs that involve political power, so the relevant question for this thread is: Can people who want power be trusted to any lesser extent than those who don't want the power? It's easy to point out people like Trump, Putin, or Mugabe as examples of people who obviously wanted power and by any reasonable standard probably shouldn't be trusted with it (and I'm going to guess that that's partly the motivation for the OP's suggestion) - but other world leaders who sought power include Nelson Mandela, Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee and Angela Merkel - all of whom seem to have dedicated considerable effort to using their power for good, and who provide good evidence against the assertion that people who want power (usually) can't be trusted with it.

 

[nlogax]

The problem with basing something on "the average person" and then randomly selecting people to fill that gap is that there will always be ~50% of people in the population dumber / more lazy / more incapable than that average person so its basically pot luck if you get someone competent or not.

I guess in theory that would statistically cancel itself out assuming the people selected were truly random, but based on some of the people I know and how quickly some have fallen for the QAnon / 5G etc conspiracy theories - there is no way I'd want any of those people anywhere near any house of Parliament!!

This is accurate. I wonder what the split of people would be who'd be looking to inhabit such a second chamber as a backstop to the Lords or as a replacement for it. What percentage would be those interested in fulfilling a civic or public duty (think magistrates) versus those who inhabit the BBC News Have Your Say pages?