Second Chamber´s Role

ONE of the last pieces of legislation pushed through the British Parliament before it rose for the Easter recess was the European Parliamentary and Local Elections (Pilots) Bill which has been the ball in a game of ping pong between the House of Commons and the House of Lords for several weeks. At the last minute the Commons won the tie break, but only because the Lords decided that it had made its point and should not prolong its objection to the Bill. The purpose of this Bill is to substitute all - postal voting for the usual polling stations in four English regions at the local and European elections due to take place in June. If the Bill had not been passed last Thursday it would have been too late to conduct this worthwhile experiment in voting methods. Proposals for changes in election procedure in Britain are the responsibility of the independent Electoral Commission which initially recommended postal voting trials in two regions and then added a third after representations from the Government. However, when the enabling Bill was brought before Parliament a fourth region had been added without the agreement of the Commission. It was this arbitrary action which led Conservatives and Liberal Democrats in the House of Lords to reject the Bill on five separate occasions before conceding defeat on the sixth. It was easy for the Government to criticise an unelected House for intefering with elections to the Commons but there were two points of principle at stake which illustrate why an elected second chamber is so necessary; to prevent rushed legislation being passed without proper scrutiny and to discourage a government from ignoring the advice of an independent body such as the Electoral Commission. Both should be noted for the future.