Could a “National Citizens Assembly” replace the House of Lords? From local government and Scotland, a provocation and a proposal
Bold suggestion (in CityMetric) from the ever-interesting local government guru Adam Lent.
Adam is trying to amplify a few stirrings about reform of the UK House of Lords (from its current “ragbag of aristocrats, bishops, ex-MPs and worthies”) into a full-blown plan for a national citizens assembly (which everyone from XR to UKgov to Macron is pursuing. We’ve covered CAs extensively on this site).
See below:
For Lords reform to be a serious attempt at listening, inspiration needs to be taken from the local level. Councils also struggle with a crisis of trust and legitimacy.
That is why a growing number [of councils] are turning to forums such as citizens’ assemblies. Done well, this deliberative approach is proving a powerful complement to the more traditional representative structure of a council.
It brings the voices of residents into the heart of decision-making, but in a far more considered and consensual fashion than the fraught climate in which politicians usually engage with voters – something recently acknowledged by Jess Phillips in her six-point plan to restore trust in politics.
The intriguing possibility emerges, therefore, of a two-chamber legislature: one based on elected representation made up of MPs, and the other on deliberative democracy made-up of ‘ordinary’ citizens.
In effect, the House of Lords would be replaced by a permanent citizens’ assembly guaranteeing the general population a direct, consensual voice at the heart of political decision-making to complement the representative and adversarial traditions of the Commons.
From 1891. Reform has been a long time coming… (see “the radical programme”)
Of course, what exactly this national citizens’ assembly might look like would need to be carefully determined.
Would participants be chosen randomly as in jury service, or might they be drawn from a network of local citizens’ assemblies?
How long would participants be expected to take part?
What expert support would they require and how would that be provided?
And would they simply take on the powers of the current House of Lords or would that require reform as well?
This detail is important and probably not best left to Parliament which has a history of watering down constitutional change proposals to homeopathic levels of dilution. It is a job, in fact, for a citizens’ assembly.
This will all sound very radical to Westminster ears but radicalism is precisely what is required. A deep frustration with politics has been allowed to fester for far too long. The result is a spreading disenchantment with democracy as a whole and the gravitation towards polarised and aggressive extremes.
More here. We would note that in 2017, the Scottish think-tank Common Weal had suggested such a plan for the Scottish Parliament (which currently lacks a “second chamber” of any kind). It’s worth reading as an answer to some of Adam’s questions.
From the A/UK perspective, we are hardly holding our breath for macro-level, top-down reform of this kind. We’re much more interested in much more direct and local constituting of power and voice, which does the necessary strengthening of citizenship and agency required in the first place. But worth noting, as the clouds scud across the sky...