TONY BLAIR pledged to reduce the powers of the House of Lords yesterday, but promised that a Bill would await the conclusions of a new committee of MPs and peers on reform.

The Government wants to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the upper chamber, and limit the length of time Lords can spend on any Bill to 60 days. These moves will be strongly resisted by the Opposition peers who believe that a decision must be taken on how peers are chosen before the hereditaries leave.

The Prime Minister opposes any elected element, believing it would undermine the supremacy of the Commons. The Tories now support a “substantially” elected upper chamber. The Liberal Democrats have backed a 70 per cent elected Lords.

However, Mr Blair has successfully avoided having to change the way peers are selected by leaving a final decision to MPs and the Lords, confident that they would never reach agreement. The new joint committee will be appointed shortly to examine the powers of the Lords and alternative forms of legislative scrutiny. After its report, MPs and peers will have a free vote on how to proceed. However, there was no specific pledge in the Queen’s Speech that a Bill would be brought forward during this parliamentary session, leaving campaigners for reform disappointed.

They believe that, with such a packed programme, reform of the Lords will be kicked into the long grass yet again.

Mr Blair has moved to improve Labour’s numbers in the Lords with 16 new peers appointed in the Dissolution Honours. This makes Labour the biggest party in the Lords for the first time. However, it still has no overall majority.

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