In recent years the main thrust of Parliamentary reform has been directed at the House of Lords, over and above the House of Commons. This was largely due to two very obvious 'defects' of the 'unreformed' Lords:
- the vast majority of peers were members of the Lords on the basis of heredity
- the House of Lords demonstrated a strong and consistent bias in favour of the Conservative Party
- the non-reformist stance of the Conservative Party (concerned only to introduce reforms that would prevent more radical reforms, e.g. the Life Peerages Act 1958)
- the conservative stance of the Lords themselves - any attempt to abolish or reform the Lords was considered likely to create such a rift with the Commons that government and legislation would be at threat
- the division of the Labour Party over the issue of reform - some Labour MPs wanted complete abolition, others wanted a full-elected second chamber, others again preferring the status quo for fear of creating a check on a future Labour government
The Blair government sought to learn the lessons of previous Lords reform attempts, recognising that general agreement existed as to the deficiencies of the Lords, but widespread disagreement about what the Lords' future should be (a vast number of options existed: reform or abolition?; if kept, should it be appointed, elected, or a bit of both?; should the Lords' powers be altered?)
Reform was to be introduced in two stages:
- removal of hereditary peers, with no further initial changes
- replacement of the House of Lords with a revised second chamber of Parliament
A first step towards reform was made successfully with the passing of the House of Lords Act 1999, reducing most (but not all) of the hereditary peers - the latter went from 777 in number to merely 92, chosen by Alternative Vote amongst all the hereditaries. This compromise was introduced to ease the passage of the bill.
Phase two of the reform process has proven far more difficult....
