Walter Bagehot said the best cure for those tempted to admire the House of Lords was to go and look at it. Clement Attlee thought the upper house was like a glass of champagne that had lost its fizz. House of Lords reform has been bubbling away ever since Tony Blair was first elected nearly 10 years ago on a platform of abolishing hereditary peers, and at times it has threatened to go as flat as Attlee’s champagne. Now it is approaching resolution. Jack Straw, leader of the Commons, is finalising the proposals for a government white paper on Lords reform. The second chamber’s precise powers have not yet been agreed, although the broad shape has been resolved. The aim is to legislate in the next session of parliament.

The hereditaries have been reduced to 92 but have clung on longer than anybody expected. It is seven years since Lord Wakeham’s royal commission recommended a reduced upper house of 550 members, partly elected but mainly appointed. It is more than three years since the House of Commons rejected all the options put before it, including a wholly appointed or wholly elected second chamber. The Commons said “no” to the two options then for a Lords, with 60% or 80% of members chosen by election.

At the time Mr Blair made clear his preference for a wholly appointed Lords and that the choice was between this and a fully elected chamber. “A hybrid between the two is wrong and will not work,” he said. Time has moved on, the loans for peerages scandal has been exposed by this newspaper and the prime minister’s opinion has changed. Mr Straw’s blueprint is for a second chamber of 450 members divided equally between appointed and elected. A hybrid, it seems, is now the thing because “the advantages of one method of entry cancel the disadvantages of the other”. The government has been dragged reluctantly into accepting a dose of democracy.

Except, as so often with this government, there is a catch. To retain the political balance of the second chamber, in which no party commands an overall majority, elections would be proportional and based on a list system. That list may be “closed” (as in the case of European parliament elections), or “partially open”, ostensibly to allow voters to give their preference to individual candidates. Either way, the lists will be controlled by the parties. Those who get on them will have had to pay their political dues. It is a recipe for an upper house of uninspiring party hacks.

That is not the only problem. Members of the reformed Lords would be limited to three parliamentary terms to ensure that it becomes more like a working assembly and less like an old people’s home. The difficulty is over the second chamber’s role. While it sounds more streamlined with 450 members, it will cost more because they will be paid good salaries — probably more than MPs — and will have all the expensive perks. At the same time the indications coming from Lord Cunningham’s committee on the Lords’ powers suggest its ability to check and balance the government will be restricted.

To a rationalist, the Lords looks like a strange hotchpotch of unelected fuddy-duddies, curious hereditaries and party has-beens elevated to the gods. Yet it is cheap, stuffed with former ministers and genuine experts who know rather more than the average lobby-fodder MP. Furthermore, it has acted increasingly independently since its current incarnation was pronounced doomed. Mr Blair is no doubt anxious to achieve reform before he hands over to Gordon Brown. But the implications of these reforms need to be examined carefully. What we want is a second chamber of wise men and women who act as guardians of the constitution against “elective dictatorship” and use their expertise to temper hastily compiled legislation. The halfway house proposed could work, but given new Labour’s history we cannot take it on trust that it will surrender an ounce of real power to a reformed Lords.