Q&A: Lords reform

ePolitix.com explains the background to Thursday's Commons statement on Lords reform.

Why reform the Lords?

Critics would say the upper chamber, with its mixture of surviving hereditary peers, appointed life peers, clergy and senior judges, is an undemocratic anachronism. Supporters see it as a body of experts which can scrutinise legislation free of the pressures imposed on elected politicians.

Allegations that parties offered to appoint donors as life peers in exchange for money have increased the pressure for reform.

How long has this been goingon?

The Conservative prime minister Lord Salisbury suggested as long ago as 1880 that the House of Lords should include life peers alongside the hereditary peers who had sat there for centuries.

The first life peers, along with the first women peers, were created by Harold Macmillan in 1958. Labour's plans to get rid of the hereditaries in the late 1960s ended in failure.

The current Labour government made a manifesto commitment in 1997 to quickly end the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords. And Labour's 2005 manifesto pledged: "We will remove the remaining hereditary peers and allow a free vote on the composition of the house".

Why has it taken so long?

In 1999 the government removed hundreds of hereditary peers, but 92 remain. When one dies, the other hereditaries in his or her party vote to choose a replacement from among those peers who were expelled in 1999.

This left the 732-member house split between 615 life peers - mostly political appointees, along with some "people's peers" chosen by the independent Lords Appointments Commission - and the hereditary peers, the law lords and the bishops.

Although few were happy with this compromise - and despite the best efforts of then leader of the Commons Robin Cook - MPs and peers did not vote again on reform until 2003. Former prime minister Tony Blair backed a wholly appointed house, but MPs voted to reject all seven options put before them, ranging from keeping the upper chamber as it is to establishing a fully elected Lords.

What happened then?

Another hiatus, until February this year when Jack Straw - then leader of the Commons - published a white paper setting out the options for a hybrid house. In March MPs backed either an 80 per cent or a fully-elected second chamber in a free vote. When this reached the Lords, peers defeated every option other than remaining a fully-appointed chamber.

How can the government break the deadlock?

In theory the government could push reform past an unwilling Lords using the Parliament Acts, but it would prove controversial and time-consuming.

Straw instead wants to continue trying to build cross-party consensus and produce a further white paper.

This could then feed into specific proposals for the Labour manifesto at the next election which, if the party wins again, would make it harder for peers to obstruct reform.

What is still to decide?

Most of the detail. The exact proportion of elected and appointed peers is still up for discussion - the government is thought to prefer 80 per cent elected, particularly because it is believed some MPs voted for 100 per elected in order to see the proposal wrecked by the Lords. The proportion of elected peers is highly unlikely to fall below 80 per cent, and the argument for an all or mostly-appointed Lords now seems to have been closed off.

Also still to decide is how to preserve the supremacy of the Commons when the two chambers disagree, and what form of electoral system to use. Under Straw's last white paper they would be elected from party lists, which is open to criticism because being placed on the list would still be a form of political appointment.