Public may be given vote on House of Lords reform

Prime Minister David Cameron held the door open for a referendum on an elected House of Lords as a parliamentary committee said the public should be given a say.

In a report examining the Government’s reform proposals, the committee backed plans for a slimmed-down Upper House made up of 450 members, 80 per centelected and 20 per cent appointed, each serving a single 15-year term and earning between £40,000-£65,000 a year, but said that the reforms should be put to a referendum.

But the cross-party panel of 26 MPs and peers was deeply split on several fundamental issues, and 12 members signed an alternative report denouncing the Government’s draft reform Bill as unworkable and calling for the establishment of a Constitutional Convention to assess the implications of change.

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With a Lords reform Bill expected to be a centrepiece of the May 9 Queen’s Speech, the scene is now set for months of bitter wrangling.

Liberal Democrats regard reform of the second chamber as a key priority, and Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has dismissed calls for a referendum as a waste of money. But large numbers of Conservative backbenchers are fiercely opposed to the changes, which they fear would put the traditional primacy of the Commons at risk.

The Bill is expected to face stiff resistance in the House of Lords.

Yesterday Mr Cameron said he was not personally in favour of a national vote on Lords reform, as it would be expensive and proposals to overhaul the upper chamber had been included in the manifestos of all three main parties.

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But he refused to rule out holding a referendum – something which many of his backbenchers are demanding and which Labour leader Ed Miliband – MP for Doncaster North –supports.

Mr Cameron said reforms would go ahead only if all three parties would agree to “work together, rationally, reasonably, sensibly on trying to deliver what I think the British public would see as, not a priority, but a perfectly sensible reform”.

Shadow Justice Secretary Sadiq Khan welcomed the committee’s backing for a referendum, as well as its call for the future relationship between the House of Commons and any new second chamber to be clarified.

“The proposals as they currently stand risk total gridlock in the way we are governed, something pro-reformers of all political colours will want to avoid,” said Mr Khan.

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“Labour supports a reformed House of Lords, through the creation of a wholly elected second chamber, with clearly identified powers, a relationship between both chambers which is codified and that upholds the primacy of the Commons, then put to the people in a referendum.”

Yesterday’s report backed use of the single transferable vote system of proportional representation to elect peers. It also supported reducing the number of Church of England bishops in a partly-elected House from 26 to 12.