Religion and law round-up – 2nd November

Bishops in the House of Lords, naked ramblers and Heathrow beauticians – but not at the same time…

Bishops in the House of Lords

Much the greatest traffic on the site this week was generated by David’s post on the Future composition of the Lords Spiritual: a speculation on how fast-tracking of women bishops into the Lords is to be accomplished and what form positive discrimination will take. It’s a very knotty problem and, coincidentally, the BBC reported that Ed Miliband told a conference in Blackpool on Saturday that if Labour wins the General Election in May 2015 it will legislate to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with an elected Senate.

Labour’s reformed Upper House would be made up of senators elected regionally from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions instead of from individual constituencies. Miliband said that the current system “fails to represent large parts of the UK” and pointed out that “London has more members in the House of Lords than the east Midlands, west Midlands, Wales, Northern Ireland, the north east and Yorkshire and Humber added together”. He concluded that the answer was “a senate of the nations and regions”. Continue reading