Lords plan will keep life peers until they die out

The 605 life peers and 91 hereditary peers will keep their seats in the House of Lords until they die out, under a White Paper to be published next month.

The plans, agreed by the Cabinet, will disappoint supporters of an elected second chamber, who had hoped to see existing peers lose their right to sit and vote. "Not all of them are ancient; it could take 30 years to get them out," said one minister who wanted a more immediate clear-out.

Opponents of the long delay said the reprieve for the hereditaries would breach the spirit of Labour's manifesto at the last general election, which said: "We will remove the remaining hereditary peers."

Jack Straw, Leader of the Commons, who is in charge of Lords reform, wants half of the members of the second chamber to be directly elected at the same time as elections to the European Parliament and the other half appointed. He believes the change must be phased in gradually because legislation to implement it needs to be approved by the Lords as well as the Commons. One supporter of the plan said: "We would never get the turkeys to vote for Christmas."

The long-awaited White Paper will be published in the first week of February and the Commons will be given a free vote on it a month later. MPs who favour radical reform believe there is a strong chance that the Commons will beef up the Straw proposal and call for 80 per cent of peers to be elected.

Ministers will be allowed to express their own views and those backing an 80 per cent elected second chamber include David Miliband, the Environment Secretary; Hilary Benn, the International Development Secretary, and Peter Hain, the Northern Ireland Secretary.

Mr Straw insists that he is proposing a 50 per cent elected Lords for debate, not as a final blueprint. He thinks that the reforms could be largely achieved over three parliaments or about 12 years.

Mr Straw believes that removing the 91 hereditaries would reduce the prospects of an all-party agreement on Lords reform as it would hit the Tories harder than other parties.

The delay in removing the existing peers means the size of the 748-strong chamber could increase in the short term until the current members die. Eventually it would drop to 540.

Another controversial idea in the White Paper is for party leaders to nominate 30 per cent of the new-look Lords, with only 20 per cent proposed by an independent appointments commission. Critics say this would entrench the patronage exposed by the "loans for peerages" affair.