Miliband announces plans to scrap the Lords – and introduce an elected Senate of Nations and Regions

In a speech to Labour’s North West regional conference in Manchester, Ed Miliband will announce that a Labour government would abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected Senate. That has (broadly speaking) been Labour policy for some time. But there’s a twist.

Miliband wants this new Senate to be a representative body made up of those from all of Britain’s Nations and Regions, as part of a new constitutional settlement to be decided by a constitutional convention soon after the next election.

The Labour leader wants the new chamber to be based on representation of the regions and the four nations of the United Kingdom to ensure that there’s great diversity in terms of where members of the upper chamber come from. This will take place on a regional basis, to avoid conflicting with the primacy of the Commons, and will see the Senate taking on a specific, defined and separate role from the Commons.

Each region of England (as well as the devolved administrations of Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland) will meet prior to the constitutional convention, and people will be asked for views on the functions of the new Senate – as well as the most appropriate form of election.

The proposals will form a key strand of Labour’s plans to devolve power away from Westminster to the English regions, as well as the devolved nations.

Miliband is expected to tell Labour’s North West conference:

“When people say that they are turned off from politics and that it doesn’t represent them, we have to do something about it.

“It cannot be right that the North West has almost the same population as London but only a small fraction of London’s number of peers.

“London is our capital and one of the world’s great cities but it cannot be right London has more members of the House of Lords than the East Midlands, West Midlands, Wales, Northern Ireland, the North East and Yorkshire and Humber added together.

“And it cannot be right that those peers who do live outside London are less likely to be from great cities like Birmingham, Liverpool and Bristol than they are to be living in less-populated rural areas.

“We will make the second chamber of Parliament truly a Senate of the Regions and Nations of our whole country.

“Because only when every part of our country has a voice at the heart of our politics can we be sure that our country is run for all and not just for some.”

This is the latest of Miliband’s recent interventions on devolution of power, following his earlier announcement of plans for an “English Devolution Bill”, and his comments on Thursday evenings at the Scottish Labour Gala Dinner confirming that there would be no backsliding on “the vow” to Scotland on further devolution post-referendum.