David Davis criticises House of Lords reform

May 9, 2012 Leave a comment

Conservative MP David Davis challenged the Government over the role of the House of Lords in light of the Queens Speech today.

He said in a debate in Parliament that while there had been a lot of discussions over the composition of the House of Lords, little consideration had been given to the role of the Upper House

Davis, contrasting the Deputy Prime Minister’s suggestions, said that a House of Lords that is representative of the Political balance in the House of Commons would undermine the ability of elected officials to hold the Government to account.

The comments came after a bill was introduced to bring forward the reforms to the House of Lords.

Baroness Hayman (Labour), in an interview with the BBC said: “There are a lot things that need to be done to improve the House of Lords.”

Davis also heavily criticised the secret courts proposal saying it would undermine the Justice system and he questioned whether these measures would actually increase security against Terrorism.

The Government stated in the first line of the Queen’s speech that its priority was to restore the economy, tackling the deficit and bringing growth back.

The most important developments from the Queen’s Speech were:

  • A bill to promote enterprise and fair markets will be bought forward
  • A bill to reform the Banking Sector will be introduced
  • A New Child and Families Bill will be introduced to Parliament.

The Queen’s speech, which was being seen as a re-launching of the Coalition Government’s commitment to restoring the economy, as expected focused on the economy along with measures that included action against Drug Driving.

Perhaps the Conservatives wanted to take this opportunity to introduce some more traditional Conservative policies (usually within the area of Law and Justice) while the Liberal Democrats took the opportunity to promote the Reform to the House of Lords.

However, critics raised concerns that there was very little to suggest a creation of Jobs.

Read about the Queens Speech in full here.

Filed under Politics Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,