BRITAIN: Unelected hereditary peers sitting in Britain's House of Lords will be abolished if proposals outlined yesterday are implemented.
The British government pledged to abolish the remaining 92 hereditary peers and set up a statutory appointments commission. The shake-up, along with the removal of the ancient 1,400-year-old office of Lord Chancellor and the setting up of a Supreme Court, "will create a House that is significantly different from that which presently exists", the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, yesterday told a packed House of Lords. Henceforth, all peers would be life appointees.
But the plans sparked fury from the opposition, with Conservative peers' leader Lord Strathclyde threatening that his party would put up "a major fight" over the proposals. He accused the government of treating the Lords with "discourtesy and contempt", while Liberal Democrat frontbench spokesman Lord Goodhart spoke of a government "betrayal" and "castration" of the Lords.
There was silence as Lord Falconer fleshed out the details of the final piece of reform of the Upper House of Parliament, which began with the ejecting of more than 600 hereditary peers in 1999.
Hundreds of peers, including former prime minister Baroness Thatcher, filled the chamber to hear the Lord Chancellor's statement. He said the consultation documents, which pave the way for legislation, follow a series of votes by MPs last February which failed to resolve the issue of what happens next to the House of Lords, currently made up of appointed life peers, law lords and bishops.
MPs threw out every option put before them, from maintaining the status quo to having a wholly elected House.
Lord Falconer said that in the circumstances, the government was proposing further reform to ensure "that we have a stable and sustainable House of Lords".
"It was never our intention that the remaining hereditary peers should remain members of the House forever," he said, adding that it was for the government to act, although Parliament would decide on the removal of the right to sit and vote of the remaining hereditary peers.
But there was anger in the Commons from shadow attorney general Mr Bill Cash MP, who branded the plans a "fundamental shift away from democracy".
Liberal Democrat spokesman Mr Paul Tyler said: "I don't believe either House will accept this unpalatable mess."
But the Lord Chancellor said the new statutory appointments commission would select and oversee appointments made to the Lords.
"This will build on the present non-statutory appointments commission which itself represented a significant voluntary relinquishing by the Prime Minister of his powers of patronage.
"The three major parties in this House and the crossbench peers will be directly represented on it, together with a number of members selected in accordance with the principles of the Commissioner for Public Appointments in an open selection process."
Peers, such as Lord Archer, convicted of an offence will, in future, like MPs who cannot sit in the Commons, be barred from the Lords. They will also be deprived of their peerage.