Should the House of Lords be elected?

The undemocratic institution of the House of Lords has been significantly strengthened since 1999 after the reform under the Labour government removed 92 hereditary peers and appointed new Lords rather than inheriting positions within the second chamber. The weak, unaccountable and unrepresentative features of the current unelected House of Lords could be strengthened through a fully elected second chamber. A fully elected chamber would abolish the current corrupt and undemocratic ‘cash for honours’ appointing system, furthermore would also increase the accountability to the people, with Lords accepting individual ministerial responsibility. There would be an increase in legitimacy and increased power to scrutinise the executive, which would prevent risks of an ‘elective dictatorship’ - currently this is not an issue as Cameron’s government only has a small majority of 12 seats and has lost 3 votes within 1 year however this would have been relevant under Blair and Thatchers governments. Moreover, if a newly elected House of Lords used a proportional representation system for voting, it could alter the composition of the chamber to be more representative of the electorate and minorities - currently, only 22% of the House of Lords are female and the average age is 69 which is unrepresentative of the social composition of the UK. In 2015 Cameron put 26 Tory Peers in the Lords. Clearly this is not good for democracy. 
However, negative evaluations of the effectiveness of the fully elected second chamber include the two elective chambers which may stimulate a legislative gridlock in which both with equal legislative power, legitimacy and authority will slow down the processes of parliamentary actions creating a less decisive and stable government. The elected second chamber is therefore argued to be unnecessary as the current appointed chamber has served an effective check on government power since 1999, allowing a strong and stable government in the UK to operate efficiently. Furthermore, the increased elections may stimulate voter apathy through ‘voter fatigue’ which would undermine the participative function of democracy.