Starmer vows to scrap House of Lords ‘as quickly as possible’
Sir Keir Starmer has vowed that a Labour government would scrap the House of Lords “as quickly as possible”, but refused to confirm a timeline.
The Labour leader would not say if his party would make the change in the first term of a potential future government, after a new report by Gordon Brown called for a “democratic second chamber”.
Brown helped launch his constitutional report for the Labour party today, calling for the “replacement of the indefensible”.
The former Prime Minister said his proposal would see the Lords replaced by a smaller “assembly of the nations and regions, which would lose its right to delay ordinary legislation for a year, but assume a new function to protect the constitution”.
The report also calls for a ban on most second jobs for MPs and a ban on foreign money in UK politics.
Starmer said a new democratically elected second chamber would be “not only less expensive, but also represent the nations and regions of the United Kingdom”, while refusing to put a timeline on the plan.
“I asked for this work to be done because I fundamentally believe this is the change we need to bring about in our country and therefore it will be the driving mission of the next Labour government,” he said.
“We will now have a period of consultation to refine, to test, but also to make sure that we can answer the question when and how are you going to implement.
“And if you are going to make such a big transfer of power away from Whitehall to lots of places across the country, then we obviously need to have that discussion about how is that going to be done because this is not going to be a talking shop.”
Brown’s report also calls for widespread devolution to regions across the country, with Starmer branding the recommendations as “the biggest ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people”.
The report includes calls for a “regionally-oriented investment bank”, more devolved housing powers and more local government power over R & D and skills spending.
Starmer also committed to Brown’s recommendation to send 50,000 civil servants out of London to the regions.