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Roland Perry · November 12th 16, 06:58 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In message , at 13:57:20 on Fri, 11 Nov
2016, d remarked:
On Fri, 11 Nov 2016 13:39:37 +0000
Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 11:25:22 on
Fri, 11 Nov 2016, Optimist remarked:

The House of Lords is a waste of space and should be abolished.

You need a second chamber, and most of the active Lords have been
recruited to provide the specialist expertise to fully challenge
Government legislation "line by line", as the saying goes.

Depends how you define challenge. If its picking over the fine legal minutae
or financial repercussions, then sure, most of them have a legal, political or
business background.

You don't have to be any of those to be in a position to ask questions
like "when the bill says five days, does that mean calendar days or
working days". It's fairly unusual for the Lords to discuss "party
political" issues, but it does happen occasionally.

If its actually debating the potential outcome of say
enviromental or transport legislation then most of them wouldn't have a clue.

"Most" are not expected to (although perversely we do expect MPs and
Ministers to know about almost everything, irrespective of their former
day job). That's why there's 600 to choose from, and most debates
involve only around a dozen who have an affinity to the subject.

We have enough legal rule regurgitators

Clearly not, as bills routinely turn out to have contradictions and
mistakes in them.

and bean counters, we need a far broader base of skills in parliament.

Which is why they ennoble people like Lord Winston (FMedSci FRSA FRCP
FRCOG FREng).
--
Roland Perry