Chamber of the Future Issue 1.0. A paper on addressing the deficit in Government long-term planning. It is an expansion of just one of the proposals in the document: Transforming our Democracy and Political System for the 21st Century.

The Political Issue

We are all well aware of the short-termism of politicians and also their tendency to kick difficult decisions down the road. They have no accountability for the long-term. As a result, root causes of problems are not tackled and costly short-term measures are used. This is not that surprising because politicians focus on getting re-elected in a 5-year time-frame.

Over the last 50 years there have been notable failures in such long-term planning e.g. the housing crisis which is with us now, where successive Governments have both failed to build sufficient houses to keep up with immediate need and to plan for housing and infrastructure to meet projected population growth. There are myriad other examples from Climate Change and Population Growth to the size of unfunded Government pensions. 


The ‘Chamber of the Future’ Proposal

We propose addressing the long-term planning deficit by a radical shake up of the Parliamentary Structure i.e. divide the House of Lords in two with one half having a revising role as now (a Chamber of Past Experience) and the other half replaced by a ‘Chamber of the Future’ looking at 20 years out.

The chamber would have a role across all long-term planning. It would have a role in both planning and accelerating beneficial opportunities but also in identifying potential negative and unintended consequences of new developments and taking appropriate action, including anticipatory regulation. In doing so it would create both the ‘vision for the future’ and the policies required to accelerate, achieve and manage that long-term vision. Anticipating and Managing the impacts of Artificial Intelligence over the next 20 years is a prime example.