What is a Senate of the Regions and Nations?Over the years many parties and groups have suggested ideas for reform of the House of Lords. Recently, the Labour party has suggested that the House of Lords should be replaced with a ‘Senate of...Posted 01 Feb 2024
What is the role of the House of Lords and could it do more?While the House of Lords is often in the press, it’s often due to the things its members should not be doing, rather than the work it does do. The chamber though has an important...Posted 29 Jan 2024
Which is the best electoral system for the House of Lords?Whenever the issue of creating an elected Second Chamber comes up, a common question is how it should be elected. Thankfully, one of the areas of agreement on Lords reform over the years has been...Posted 27 Dec 2023
How many peers are there in the House of Lords – and how many does it need?One of the unique features of our currently second chamber, apart from it being unelected and still partially based on inherited titles, is that its membership is huge. At over 800 peers in total, not...Posted 21 Dec 2023
Unfinished Business: New report shows routes to an elected Second ChamberReform of the House of Lords is both hugely popular with the public and very long overdue. Yet in any serious discussion of how to achieve reform, the same questions come up: What about Commons...Posted 11 Dec 2023
Government report can’t say if voter ID made any difference to problem it was supposed to solveThe government has published its evaluation of the Elections Act changes, including the voter ID requirement, used for the first time in the English local elections in May. Back in September, three separate independent reports...Posted 08 Dec 2023
New political funding rules sneak inWhen people are asked about the problems with money in politics, few raise the issue of there not being enough. In fact, the public are deeply concerned about big money in politics with the majority...Posted 24 Nov 2023
There is a dangerous loophole in our political financing rulesShadowy dining clubs and millions of pounds in donations. This is the realm of ‘unincorporated associations’ one of the least-regulated areas of political finance in the UK. Last week, Politico reported that these little-known entities...Posted 12 Jun 2023
How we could make the House of Lords gender equal overnightIt is a quiet scandal that 105 years after women first won the vote they are still grossly under-represented in Parliament. Women make up just over a third of MPs in the Commons and the...Posted 08 Mar 2023
Ed Davey – Let’s make the next general election the last fought under First Past the PostThis week we supported a panel with Liberal Democrat Leader Ed Davey, as part of a rescheduled conference event. The ERS attends all the major party conferences, but this year’s Liberal Democrat conference was cancelled...Posted 01 Dec 2022