So in what way does a House of Lords/Senate that can't do anything against the will of the Commons, as suggested by most candidates, differ from Blears' unicameral approach?
We are already close to it, with a tightly disciplined majority under Blair meaning the executive has not got its way on only a handful of issues, and has only actually been defeated on one significant clause (the one that would have permitted 3 months police detention without charge) in 10 years. There are plenty of unicameral systems where the executive has less power.
I took the all the mentions of not having veto, etc, as not being able to allow the upper house to block supply. I don't personally agree with that. Since, presumably from other answers, they do not want the upper house to originate spending bills, like the US Senate can, then blocking supply is a check and balance.
It requires responsible government, and the Australian Democrats have had issues with trying to come to a suitable method to allow the executive to provide good and consistent government while really only having the blocking of supply as the biggest card up their sleeve.
IIRC, originally Don Chip said he would not block supply, th e concern being that he did not want to precipitate another constitutional crisis like in 1975, however, their policy became that they would block supply if they needed to.
I think the Australian Senate is a good model. I think it is better than the appointed upper houses in other Westminster systems like Canada's, and I think its more limited powers in comparison to the US Senate still allow the House to have primacy.
The UK might not be able to construct federal electorates for the upper house, given its Parliament's national structure, even with current devolution, maybe one super-district with PR would be a just method.
But IMO, the Senate should not be able to initiate money bills, and should be able to block legislation that is repugnant, including supply.
with a tightly disciplined majority under Blair meaning the executive has not got its way on only a handful of issues
That is the probably with parliamentary systems, executive discipline is easy to extend into the legislature as the executive is already embedded in the legislative body. One of the problems the Australian Senate has is that members of the Executive can be in the Senate too. That is something any change to the UK upper house should prohibit. It is important that the upper-house remains a truly legislative body.
Comments