Frustrated Lords reform committee throws in towel

The committee appointed by Tony Blair to draw up proposals for reform of the House of Lords voted yesterday to wind itself up in frustration at the Government's apparent loss of interest in the process.

William Hague, Kenneth Clarke and Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay, the Liberal Democrat frontbench peer, led a revolt which is said to have taken Jack Cunningham, the committee chairman and a former Labour cabinet minister, by surprise.

During two hours of "forceful debate" members said there was no point in continuing if the Government was not serious about reforming the second chamber. Labour's 2001 manifesto pledged to make the Lords more democratic.

"We wound up, pretty cross that there has been no progress, and it looks like there will not be any this Parliament," said one committee member. "We decided there was no point carrying on and felt very let down. The remit of the committee is reform and if that isn't happening there's no point in continuing. I think Cunningham was surprised how strong the feeling was."

The all-party committee agreed to meet next month and produce a winding-up report, its final piece of work.

A minority of Labour members tried to argue yesterday to keep the committee going to work on proposals for the Lords but they were overruled by other members. After at least an hour of discussion, they relented when it became clear that there was no appetite to continue.

Mr Cunningham told the BBC that he did not believe it was time to wind up the committee. "There are two pretty firmly held and opposing views in the committee," he said. "It is true that we had a good-natured, good-humoured, very positive discussion this morning and it's now my responsibility as chairman of the committee to produce a draft report about what we should say to Parliament about the future."

Moves to reform the House of Lords ended in disarray earlier this month when MPs rejected all options for reform, including the committee's blueprint.

Following the chaotic vote on 4 February, the Tories accused the Government's policy on the Lords as being "in shreds". In a series of votes in the Commons, MPs rejected options including a fully-elected upper house and a hybrid chamber made up of 80 per cent elected and 20 per cent appointed peers. Mr Blair's preferred option of an all-appointed chamber was rejected by 78 votes.

There were recriminations after those in favour of radical reform of the chamber accused the Prime Minister of torpedoing proposals.

MPs failed to support a plan for a Lords that was 80 per cent elected by three votes, while the vote for a 60 per cent elected chamber, which reformers had confidently expected to win, was lost by 316 to 253, a majority of 63.

Following the debacle, the issue was set to be referred back to the Joint Committee of MPs and peers to produce a proposal for the next stage of Lords reform. But the future of how to proceed has been thrown into disarray by yesterday's decision. The committee was also expected to look at how much money retiring peers would gain in pay-offs.

Problems over reform of the 800-year-old institution have dogged the Government since it first came to power and the issue has repeatedly been shelved.