Parliament Needs an Upgrade: Not Just The Buildings.

Once again sleaze is the driver of reform. Why does it always have to get to this? Why do our national institutions like Church and State find it so difficult to keep up with modern life, in any age, but especially now in the age of mass connectivity?

Of course there needs to be an end to groping, innuendo, abuse and worse. Of course people of all ages and sexes, especially women who are the primary victims, need to have a structure to protect them and a means of complaint without personal or career damage. But it has to go much further.

Parliament was built on the lines of a gentleman’s club. Right for mid-Victorian times but no longer. Self-employed MPs, employing their own staff in a structure awash with bars, with insufficient space in the Chambers of either House to accommodate all the members, is not fit for the modern purpose of national leadership and governance.

MPs are not really self employed, they are paid by taxpayers and employed by Parliament, their staff should be employed and managed by Parliament with full modern HR facilities and pastoral care. Every MP should have a marked seat in the Commons Chamber, which would have to be subject to significant remodeling.There should be few if any bars and they should be subject to realistic licencing hours. Members are there to work, not for a piss up. The House of Lords should have only one hundred Peers allowed into the legislative process and facilities. That number should be elected by universal suffrage on a regional basis. I could go on and on, but you get the gist.

The present set up is way past its sell by date, moral code et al and an upgrade is long overdue. Tradition is good but it is not an excuse to live in the past. Otherwise we would still be living in caves.