The Labour party has launched a new report recommending radical reforms to the UK’s political system, including proposals to abolish the House of Lords.
Party leader Sir Keir Starmer says that Labour will deliver the “biggest ever transfer of power from Westminster to the British people” if successful at the next general election.
The report contains 40 recommendations, which include handing more economic powers to regional mayors in England, the devolved governments in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, and local councils.
Sir Keir suggested that all the proposals in the report, titled ‘A New Britain’, could be introduced within five years under a Labour government.
“I’m very keen that all of the recommendations in the report are carried out as quickly as possible,” Sir Keir said.
“I profoundly think that the fact we hold too much power in Whitehall is holding us back, not only politically - with people feeling more distant form politics - but economically.
“Amongst the reasons we have failed to grow our economy in the last 12 years is we're not allowing every part of the UK to play its part economically.”
On Monday, Sir Keir presented the report and set out details around the reforms alongside Gordon Brown, the former Labour PM.
The Labour leader said that if implemented, the reforms would free up £200 million per year and put an end to "sticking plaster politics".
Some of the specific recommendations within it include moving 50,000 Whitehall jobs outside the capital, handing new fiscal powers to local authorities, banning most second jobs for MPs, putting an anti-corruption commissioner in place, and ensuring Holyrood has influence in striking any international deals which involve regions of Scotland.
Labour will hold a consultation on the proposals and the length of time it will take to implement them before making a decision on whether to include them in the party’s election manifesto for the next national poll.
Speaking about the plans to scrap the House of Lords - one of the report's most striking points -, Sir Keir said that an unelected chamber of peers holding such levels of power was “indefensible” and that it would be replaced with an elected body if abolished.
The Lords now has around 800 members, with critics suggesting that the unelected chamber has become too big.
However, Tory peer Lord Norton warned against “Big Bang reform” and said there was merit in the Lords remaining in place and peers being unelected.
Lord Norton told Times Radio that the Lords “improves the law” of the UK through the “detailed legislative scrutiny” carried out by peers on Bills coming through from the House of Commons.
