BBC News has
news of the latest announcement (with video), made today, for Lords' Reform:
Nick Clegg has set out options for replacing the House of Lords with a mainly elected upper chamber.
The deputy prime minister outlined plans for a legislature with 300 members, 80% of which could be elected. While it was up to MPs and peers to decide the final balance, he said the first elections should happen in 2015. The plans would give Parliament "greater democratic legitimacy", he argued, but many MPs said it would threaten the supremacy of the Commons.
Labour said the plans were a "dog's dinner" lacking detail and a number of backbench MPs said any proposals should be put to the people in a referendum.
Alongside Prime Minister David Cameron, Mr Clegg announced the proposed reforms to the Commons but was barracked by many Tory MPs while doing so.
He described reform of the House of Lords as "unfinished business" but said he was "open-minded" about how to get to the government's ultimate goal of a mainly elected chamber to replace the existing appointed one.
A future government draft bill would contain plans for an 80:20 split but there would be a provision for a fully elected chamber if that is "what people want", he told MPs, appealing for a cross-party consensus on the issue.
A joint committee of 13 MPs and 13 peers to be set up in the next few months will consider plans for members of the new legislature to be elected for 15-year terms under the single transferable vote system.
Under the government's plans, members would be elected on a staged basis - a third every five years - with the first elections for the new chamber to take place in 2015 - on the same day as the next general election.
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