Brown promises House of Lords reform: but will the bishops go?

In his speech in the House of Commons about his plans for constitutional reform, the Prime Minister Gordon Brown said that he would start consultation on reforming the House of Lords.

He said: “We will move forward with reform of the House of Lords. The government’s white paper published last July, and for which there is backing from other parties, committed us to an 80% or 100% elected House of Lords. We must now take the next steps as we complete this reform. The government will come forward with published proposals for the final stages of House of Lords reform before the summer break – including the next steps we can take to resolve the position of the remaining hereditary peers and other outstanding issues.”

Under the plans, around 300 senators would be created, earning salaries of up to £60,000-a-year. However, the reform is unlikely to go ahead before the next General Election and may not happen for years. Naturally, an 80% elected House of Lords would leave the bishops in place – albeit in reduced numbers.

It has yet to be decided which proportion of the new Upper House will be subject to elections and what voting system will be used. Justice Secretary Jack Straw, who will lead the latest attempt to reach agreement, is thought to favour a first-past-the-post system, with peers elected to large ‘superconstituencies’. Elections to the new Senate would take place on the same day as General Elections. The 746-strong Lords would be reduced to as few as 300. The remaining 92 hereditary peers, who survived the 1999 House of Lords Act, will be axed.

Since Labour’s election in 1997, there have been several attempts to reform the Lords, all of which have ended in messy compromise. A Royal Commission chaired by Lord Wakeham followed the changes in 1999, and after that White Papers were published in 2001 and 2007.

Interestingly, in the announcement, Mr Brown, like Barack Obama, has now found it politic to include in his speeches references to the huge number of people who have no “faith”. He said in the Commons: “So we must build a process that engages citizens themselves, people of all parties and none; of all faiths and no faith; from every background and every part of the country.”

We look forward with anticipation to seeing the details of this consultation, and the plans for a written constitution, and hope that as many people as possible will take part in it. Watch this space for further details.

Meanwhile, the Church of England has launched its own propaganda pages for its bishops in the Lords.