Our NHS Our Future: Adopt a Peer
This briefing outlines the next stages of the campaign.
The House of Lords
In October the Health and Social Care Bill will make its way to the House of Lords where UNISON and our allies have another opportunity to influence the bill.
Who are peers exactly?
Peers are members of the House of Lords (the upper house of Parliament). Some are heredity peers, some are life peers and 24 are Lords Spiritual, such as bishops. As members of the upper house, peers hold the lower house to account. They do this by scrutinizing legislation proposed by the House of Commons, through debate and by proposing amendments.
Can they make a difference to the Health and Social Care Bill?
Peers can delay legislation and make recommendations to parliament. Their power to reject bills passed by the House of Commons is limited but they can make amendments that go back to the Commons.
Which peers will oppose the Bill?
Labour peers will be opposing the bill. A number of others, including Lib Dems such as Baroness Shirley Williams, have raised serious concerns about the Health and Social Care Bill. There are also a large number of non-affiliated cross-bench peers that may be responsive to concerns about the future of the NHS. The Lords will scrutinise the Bill and lay down their own amendments to it. 2
How do you lobby Peers?
You can help raise concerns about the proposed changes to the NHS by writing to them. Peers are not used to the individual lobbying that MPs get, so receiving personal contacts from members of the public should really get their attention.
How do you get in contact?
One of the reasons they do not get much contact is that they do not have a direct group of constituents.
To help you get around this there are a number of things you can do:
Use the TUC’s "Adopt a Peer" tool at http://goingtowork.org.uk/peers. This will match you at random to a member of the House of Lords and help you to contact them, either directly with a posted letter, or by email.
Alternatively you can Google a Peer, find out who they are, where they stand politically and if they are pro- or anti- reforms and then get in touch with them and write them a letter or email telling them why you are not happy with the reforms.
You could also organise local events to which you invite members of the House of Lords to attend.
UNISON has produced a model letter for you use as the basis of your email or letter to your adopted Peer. Go to www.unison.org.uk/ournhs and visit the "Resources" page.
Finally, remember the words of Nye Bevan, the founder of the NHS:
"the NHS will last as long as there folk left with the faith to fight for it
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