London - Britain's Labour government sounded the death knell yesterday for the centuries-old right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. But it left the timing vague and said virtually nothing about further reform of the unelected upper house.
Lord (Ivor) Richard told an audience including many earls, viscounts, marquises and barons that their days performing an ermine-clad role in Britain's peculiar unwritten constitution were numbered. He reminded them that some of their grandfathers had simply bought their peerages from the Liberal Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, in the early 1900s.
"The continuation of hereditary membership of the second chamber is not for negotiation," he said in a speech that signalled the end of backstage attempts to negotiate a compromise with the opposition Conservatives.