Letters: Scrapping the Lords would condemn the country to worse legislation
SIR – I take issue with John Sheridan Smith, who wants the House of Lords to be scrapped (Letters, June 25).
There is no doubt that a degree of reform would be beneficial, not least to prevent the practice of arriving, registering attendance, then leaving. There have been many reports of peers doing this in order to receive their allowance without contributing to debates.
However, the opportunity to review legislation allows for reflection and suggested amendments. These things are particularly valuable when the quality of MPs and civil servants leaves so much to be desired. It would also appear that far fewer Lords have their names dragged through the mud for indiscretions than their colleagues in the Commons.
The second chamber enables better legislation. We should keep it.
Stephen Howey
Woodford Green, Essex
SIR – John Sheridan Smith’s idea deserves serious consideration. Many countries, including Finland and Sweden, are unicameral and have well-functioning governments.
Of those with two chambers, only three have a second chamber larger than the first – namely us, Kazakhstan and Burkina Faso. In fact, among countries whose populations are of a similar size to ours, the average number of members of the second chamber is 90. We, by contrast, have 784. Even if there is some justification for a second chamber, there is no justification for our bloated House of Lords.
The financial savings of abolishing the Lords would be enormous, especially with the impending refurbishment of the Palace of Westminster. The Church of England would be able to employ fewer bishops – no bad thing – and Sir Keir Starmer would be spared the bother of packing our Upper House with Labour cronies when he takes over next month.
The King’s speech could be read in Westminster Hall, giving all members of the Commons a seat.
Dr Michael Pegg
Esher, Surrey
SIR – John Sheridan Smith, in his argument for a unicameral Parliament, points out that, although members of the Lords can and do amend proposed legislation, these amendments are referred back to the Commons for acceptance or otherwise before enactment.
We in Scotland have a unicameral parliament that, time and again, has passed defective legislation. In some cases it has been scrapped as unworkable.
This despite what is described as a “strong committee system”, which in reality is lacking.
There may be a case for replacing the Lords – but think very carefully about what with, and do not rely on just the Commons.
Mike Salter
Banchory, Aberdeenshire
The Tories’ record
SIR – I am bewildered by conservative-minded voters who are going to support Reform UK (Letters, June 25) in order to punish the Conservatives for their alleged failures.
This thinking is completely illogical. It fails to recognise the massive challenges that any government would have faced in dealing with the Covid pandemic for more than two years, resulting in the expense of billions of pounds and huge societal disruption. Then came the further economic shock of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and the consequent large increases in energy costs and inflation.
How will allowing a Left-wing Labour Party to sweep to victory help bring about the social, economic and international conditions that conservative-leaning citizens wish to see? It seems that the personal, emotional need to punish the Conservative Party has overwhelmed any consideration of what is in the country’s best interests.
Harry Knowles
Ulverston, Cumbria
SIR – I am a totally disappointed Conservative voter. I am also within the Clacton constituency.
Nigel Farage will not be getting my vote. His views on Ukraine, Nato and Donald Trump are ridiculous.
That said, after the election, the Conservatives will have to rebuild from scratch as a party with proper conservative values.
Trying to be all things to all people just does not work, and the country as a whole has paid the price.
R G Hopgood
Kirby-le-Soken, Essex
SIR – Charles Hopkins (Letters, June 24) says we need more MPs like Priti Patel and Kemi Badenoch.
I certainly disagree about the former, given her track record under Boris Johnson. Dame Priti rarely questioned Mr Johnson, and was a failure as home secretary.
The Conservatives need to think long and hard about what they stand for. As it is, I have no faith in them – but none in Labour, either.
Joe Amos
Worcester
Exit Assange
SIR – For the first time in a long time I woke up yesterday to hear a positive news story leading the Radio 4 headlines. Julian Assange has left the country (report, telegraph.co.uk, June 25).
William T Nuttall
Rossendale, Lancashire
SIR – How much has Mr Assange cost the British taxpayer?
Robert Pugh
Llandeilo, Carmarthenshire
Post of Christmas past
SIR – Over the past two days I have received four Christmas cards. No seagulls in sight, however (“Dive-bombing gulls delay post deliveries”, report, June 24).
Alistair Bishop
Northwood, Middlesex
Lots of bottles
SIR – My wonderful grandmother was a prodigious tippler: G and Ts before lunch and dinner.
When I visited her, my daily walk to the licensed grocer – with a basket, not a plastic bag – to return the accumulated bottles (Letters, June 25) ensured that I was never short of pocket money.
Grandmama lived well into her nineties and I still use her basket.
Felicity Thomson
Alloway, Ayrshire
The BMA and Israel
SIR – I was horrified to read of the British Medical Association (BMA) conference (report, June 25), where a woman was heckled for saying she was a “practising Jew”, and about one in 10 motions had to be removed on legal grounds since they “risked being perceived as … anti-Semitic”.
The BMA’s actions – and the anti-Semitic comments of some of its doctors – raise the fear that Jewish patients may not receive the same level of care as other patients.
I am the director of an internal medicine department in Israel. We are a mixed staff of all ethnic groups – something that gives me true pride. We work together to provide top-level, timely medical care to everyone. There is no discrimination between the Jewish, Muslim and Christian doctors. We all have the same opportunities and we all face the same enemies.
The rockets from Gaza and Lebanon are non-discriminatory. One of our Bedouin doctors told me his aunt was killed on October 7 while working on a farm on the border. She was shot 45 times in the face to disfigure her body.
I invite the BMA to send a delegation to visit and see how we work. They may even learn a thing or two about how to cut waiting lists.
Stephen Malnick
Clinical associate professor of medicine, Kaplan Medical Centre
Rehovot, Israel
Dogs of war
SIR – My grandfather was a vet. During the Second World War, one of his jobs was to look after the pets which the German PoWs (Letters, June 25) in the nearby camp were encouraged to keep.
After the war there was a knock at the door. It was a German soldier from the camp. He said: “I’m going home now but I cannot take my dog and I am worried what might happen to him.”
So my grandfather acquired a dachshund called Fritz. The dog only answered to commands in German, which was awkward in 1946 Yorkshire.
Five years later there was another knock on the door and it was the German soldier again, accompanied by his new wife. “Thank you so much,” he said, “but I have come for my dog.”
Andy Lyons
Sherborne, Dorset
SIR – For my first Christmas, two German PoWs gave me beautiful, carved wooden toys (Letters, June 22) – a walking “wobble” horse and a pecking chicken. I treasured them for many years.
Cynthia Setter
Bovey Tracey, Devon
Resisting the temptation to feed wild animals
SIR – The sad news that Callum the red deer stag has been put down after hikers gave him unsuitable food, including croissants (report, June 24), highlights the problems that can result from feeding deer and other wildlife.
A deer’s digestive system is not designed to cope with non-natural food, and processed food is especially bad. Health issues aside, hand-feeding habituates deer to human proximity when they should be wary of it. This can also create an unnatural dependency and encourage deer to congregate in lay-bys and other places where they can be hazards to traffic.
Park deer may become especially pushy when demanding handouts from people once they have learnt to expect them. At the same time, people can lose their respect for what remains a large and essentially wild animal with the potential to cause injuries with antlers and hooves. Just recently a member of the public ended up wrestling with a red stag in a public park.
However tempting it may be, please do not feed deer, whether they are wild or in a park. Under normal circumstances they will find all that they need naturally or be provided with suitable forage by their keepers. Encouraging over-familiarity between any wild animals and humans can create problems for all concerned.
Charles Smith-Jones
Technical adviser, British Deer Society
Fordingbridge, Hampshire
Angela Rayner’s plan to get more from the NHS
SIR – Angela Rayner, the shadow deputy prime minister, claims that 40,000 extra NHS appointments a week will be cost-free as they will save money in the end (report, June 22).
As a past convener of Unison, she’d surely never accept this as an argument to make exhausted staff work even harder and longer hours in order to achieve such a goal at no cost to the taxpayer.
Bill Todd
Whitton, Middlesex
SIR – A major cause of the NHS’s problems was Tony Blair’s disastrous GP contract of 2004, which removed evening, weekend and bank holiday cover in primary care. Overnight we lost the one feature of the NHS that was truly admired and envied abroad.
This led to A&E queues, as did Labour’s policy – adopted later by the Conservatives – of building new hospitals with fewer beds than those they replaced, which meant patients ended up in corridors and ambulances were stuck in car parks.
Remember, too, that Labour wished to lock down harder during the pandemic, and continue government payouts for longer.
Dr Robert Pearson
Barnard Castle, Co Durham
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