IF THE essence of the case for reform of the House of Lords is that it consists of an unrepresentative, unelected elite that is an affront to democracy - most manifest in the doomed hereditary peers - what is the point of replacing it another?

Yet, that seems to be the government's desire as it is disclosed that it will, in its evidence to the Royal Commission deciding the future of the upper house, argue against its members being elected as those of the Commons are.

True, if there is to be a retention of the Lords' valuable role as the checking and moderating influence on legislation proposed by the Commons, it would be difficult to to devise an elected second chamber that did not reflect the political power base that the ballot box had created in the lower house.

The upshot of a Lords that was a mirror of the Commons would be that it would be reduced to a rubber-stamp function that would be another perversion of democracy and at the same time reduce the quality control that the Upper House presently maintains on legislation.

And this would be all the more likely to come about if elections for seats in the Lords were held at the same time as those for the Commons. But if such concerns lie behind the government's favouring the peers of the future being nominated, so, too, it seems, does the desire that the ultimate parliamentary supremacy of the Commons is not questioned by the Lords having in principle equal status by virtue of having been elected in the same way as MPs, so undermining the current right of the lower house overrule them.

Yet if these considerations lead the government to prefer an upper house of nominated members, there is, despite the recommendation that they be chosen by an independent commission charged with ensuring no one party is dominant, it is bound to mean it will undemocratically consist, just as it did before, of people who are there because of privilege or favour.

And who would nominate the nominees chosen by the commission? It is easy to see the candidates and the appointees being thrown up by a reworked version of the honours system and a retirement scheme for MPs.

The government should stick closer to democracy - as we are sure that is what most people want. And if it fears the Lords being too like the Commons if each was elected, it should begin looking at an electoral system for the upper house that would generate a beneficial contrast.

Such could, for instance, stem from the Lords having fewer members and, as result of each being elected - ideally, at different intervals from General Elections - for much larger constituencies than those of MPs, the results would be likely to be healthily divergent from those in the elections for the Commons.

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