Guardian: Clegg to front plan for mainly elected House of Lords

Story from today's Guardian newspaper:

Nick Clegg will next year outline plans for the most far-reaching changes to the House of Lords since landmark reforms 100 years ago by a Liberal government ended the upper house's ability to block Britain's annual budget.

In a move to shore up the position of the beleaguered Liberal Democrats, the cabinet will endorse the deputy prime minister's plans for the upper chamber to be overwhelmingly composed of elected members. It is expected that the cabinet will agree that 80% of the new house should be elected.

David Cameron, who has grown increasingly alarmed in the past month at the personal attacks on Clegg, hopes such historic changes will strengthen the Lib Dems.

So far, so good... But there could be some wreckers:

Clegg may find he has a battle within the cabinet once he has outlined his plans. Some senior Tories believe Cameron will quietly live up to his pre-election commitment to ensure that reform of the House of Lords moves slowly when a joint committee of both houses of parliament is established after the publication of Clegg's blueprint.

"I'm sure we will have a great fanfare of reform on the centenary of the 1911 Parliament Act," one senior figure said. "Thereafter it won't be so much a case of kicking it into the long grass – we'll be looking to park it in grass that is around the height of a giraffe."

Read the whole thing - the article gives a convenient summary of (lack of) progress on House of Lords Reform.... A good candidate for exam topics.