UK: government proposes to elect all members of House of Lords
The Scotsman reports: Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, yesterday outlined proposals to make the Lords fully or mainly elected, although he admitted this would not happen until after the next general election, due by June 2010.
He wants the number of peers reduced from more than 700 to no more than 450, and would abolish the hereditary peers – those sitting in the Lords by right of family ties. Their number has already been reduced to 92 by reforms introduced when Tony Blair was prime minister.
Peers would serve single terms of between 12 and 15 years, compared with MPs, who have to be re-elected every five years.
The Tories also back reform, meaning that changes are likely to be put before MPs which ever party forms the next government. But a number of members of the Lords, which voted by a huge majority last year to reject having the second chamber elected, said they would oppose the changes vigorously. Baroness D'Souza, who heads a group of 61 independent or cross-bench peers, said she was concerned that the primacy of the Commons could be undermined if both MPs and peers were elected. -- Peers vow to oppose planned reforms in Lords amid fears for parliament's integrity