Your analysis of the current debate in the Lords over electoral reform (Editorial, 18 January) omits a number of salient features. In a radical departure from long-established practice, the government is using its majority to prescribe the number of MPs, incidentally without offering any explanation for the number it has arbitrarily chosen. It is abolishing the procedure for public inquiries in which the Boundary Commission's proposals, and others, can be tested, and it is requiring reviews to be held every five years, which will lead to unprecedented turbulence in the system. Labour has no problem with the AV referendum being held in May, but it shares the serious reservations of the all-party constitutional committees of both houses about how these important changes are being promoted.
When the government announced last year that the parliamentary session would be extended to two years, Sir George Young argued that this would allow time for greater scrutiny of legislation. Now that such scrutiny is being applied to major constitutional changes embodied in a single bill which could perfectly easily be split, it cries foul. And this is the new politics.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords
• It is indeed, as you say, "time for a deal" on the parliamentary voting system and constituencies bill. This obstruction is based purely on partisan bickering from both sides of the house. The Lords are spending hours and late-night sessions delaying a bill meant to make our democracy fairer – something they're terrified of, as the Lords' members are unelected and unaccountable.
Meanwhile, they took only a few hours and a single vote in the Lords to pass a rise in university tuition fees that will put many lower-middle-class and poorer students off going into higher education for life. The average age in the House of Lords is 68, and the oldest member was born in 1912. It's clear that our politicians care more about keeping parliament unaccountable and for their out-of-date generation than about the futures of my generation.
Elliot Folan
Candidate for Barnet's member of the UK Youth Parliament
• If, as your leader claims, both the reduction of constituencies and the change to the voting system are essential to greater future fairness and apparently cannot be separated out into two bills, why are we voters only due in the planned referendum to get a say on one aspect? Messrs Cameron and Clegg are forever lecturing us on how they want us to have a bigger say. I want to vote for a transferable vote come May but will mark my paper "also against Tory gerrymandering". Will it be classed as spoilt?
David Wotherspoon
Downholland, Lancashire
• In driving through the legislation on the AV referendum linked to boundary changes, Nick Clegg is likely to fall into an elephant trap largely of his own making (Clegg accuses Labour as Lords are stalled on AV referendum, 19 January). If the legislation is passed, those Labour supporters who support AV can legitimately vote no, as severing the unacceptable link to boundary changes was offered in return for support for the bill to proceed but refused. The Tories will vote no, leaving a declining remnant of Lib Dem supporters to approve a measure that is only associated with Clegg's hubris – pride before a fall for the currently most hated man in British politics.
Tony Flynn
Newcastle Upon Tyne
• John Haworth (Letters, 17 January) claims the only reason we have the coalition is Lib Dem betrayal. This falsehood cannot stand unchallenged. Thanks to first-past-the-post, there was no alternative viable government. Yet a large part of his party is now campaigning against the very change that would have allowed a progressive coalition to be formed (and which they promised years ago), while many other Labourites have said they will vote for the status quo to spite Clegg. If Labour supporters want a progressive government, they need to stop acting like petulant children on the issue of voting reform.
Richard Miller
Seasalter, Kent
