Reform by numbers: new shape of upper house starts to emerge

The seven options from which the blueprint for a reconstituted House of Lords will be chosen are likely to provoke passionate conflict

When peers and MPs vote on the future make-up of the House of Lords early next year they will be signalling the end of a parliamentary tradition dating back nearly 700 years. With one sweep, the Commons and Lords will herald the end of the last hereditary peers and the arrival of elected members.

A report published yesterday by a joint parliamentary committee on Lords reform lays out seven options, ranging from a wholly appointed to a wholly elected chamber, with five compromise options in between.

The report is the result of weeks of wrangling between members of the 24-strong committee of MPs and peers, chaired by the former cabinet "enforcer" Jack Cunningham.

The 36-page document looks likely to unleash passionate debate at the end of a process of reform that began three years ago when the majority of hereditary peers were removed from the upper chamber.

The passage of change has been anything but smooth. A year ago, the Lord Chancellor's White Paper, proposing a Lords with only one in five elected members, was shredded by Labour backbenchers.

And that both reformers and traditionalists were able to find something to welcome in the reportcould spell trouble for Labour's most ambitious constitutional reform yet.

MPs and peers are expected to debate and vote on the seven options next month, before sending the joint committee back to produce detailed proposals.

If necessary, the committee will have to pave the way for a compromise between the democratic zeal of many Labour MPs and the desire of traditionalists in the Lords to maintain the expertise and traditional character of an appointed chamber, a task that Mr Cunningham acknowledged would be tough to achieve.

Some committee members believe they could produce final proposals as soon as the end of the year, ready for a draft Bill to be included in the next Queen's Speech. Others are more circumspect, warning that detailed constitutional wrangling could kick reform into the long grass.

MPs are expected to back an 80 per cent elected Lords, while peers will probably back only one in five elected members. The result could be a legislative log-jam that could scupper Labour's goal of making historic changes to the chamber.

The committee was united in its recommendations that a new Lords would have powers broadly in line with those in the upper house now – revising legislation, holding the Government to account and scrutinising the actions of ministers.

Five principles are set down for the make-up of the new House: legitimacy, representativeness, no dominance by any one party, independence and expertise.

The report lays out proposals for a 600-member Lords, broadly in line with current numbers but more than twice the size of any second chamber elsewhere in the democratic world. It would be far larger than the 350-strong house recommended by the Public Administration Select Committee earlier this year.

Life peers would be able to maintain their membership of the reformed house, but the report makes it plain that there will be no place for the 91 remaining hereditary peers, allowed to stay in Parliament under a compromise hammered out in 1999. Instead, MPs and peers envisage a house of peers enjoying 12-year fixed terms.

An independent appointments commission would choose members, replacing the current commission, which was pilloried for choosing well-known establishment figures as the ill-fated "people's peers".

MPs and peers rejected compulsory redundancy for life peers. While acknowledging that a voluntary scheme would be considered, Mr Cunningham made it clear yesterday that the current life peers would not be "turfed out".

He said: "These people have rearranged their lives and accepted a life peerage and given up lucrative careers elsewhere for what is a demanding and not very well remunerated role. To tip them out without a penny did not recommend itself to the committee, so we concluded that whatever the outcome, that would not be done."

But when members of the committee debated the make-up of the new chamber, and the crucial question of how many peers would be elected and how many appointed, the consensus ended.

The report studiously avoids giving backing to any breakdown between elected and appointed peers. It warns that a partially-elected house may be seen by the public as not worth voting for.

But it also warns that a fully-elected chamber would lose much of the world-class expertise and cross-party independent thinking that characterise the Lords.

The Public Administration Committee report proposed a 60 per cent elected House of Lords. The compromise was backed as the option most favoured by Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons.

The Tory leadership has come out in favour of an 80 per cent elected Lords. But that is not a view shared by many Conservative peers, and most observers expect a resounding vote in favour of a largely-appointed second house.

Liberal Democrats, while favouring a wholly-elected chamber, would back a chamber with a majority of members chosen at the polls.

Labour MPs are also divided, although a straw poll of the Parliamentary Labour Party carried out by the reforming backbencher Graham Allen indicated that the "centre of gravity" lay at a chamber with 59 per cent elected members.

In reality, Lords reform divides all parties. The former chancellor Kenneth Clarke, a Conservative member of the committee on reform, called for a wholly-elected chamber yesterday. But his Tory colleague Lord Howe of Aberavon, the former foreign secretary, warned that elected peers would create a "two-tier" second chamber.

Many detailed questions about Lords reform remain unanswered, including the timing and franchise for elections to the new chamber and how to deal with the status of the law lords and the Church of England bishops who sit in the House.

The crucial question of managing the transition to an elected body with no party majority, which also includes a breadth of experience, is also yet to be tackled in depth.

Whatever the conclusion, a reformed House of Lords is likely to cost the taxpayer dear. Mr Cunningham made it clear yesterday that newly-elected members would expect salaries and resources, such as offices, similar to those accorded to MPs. If that was the case, the revamped chamber would cost about £170m a year. Mr Cunningham said: "This is not a menu without prices."