These are referred to as Stage 1 and 2 of the process. New Labour in government will, as we promised, carry out a careful and considered reform of the House of Lords. These grandiose claims are in inverse proportion to the reform's actual democratic content. A series of alternative proposals for the final composition of the Lords falls well short of an elected second chamber. These include full nomination, an indirectly elected chamber or a mixed combination of elected and selected members.
Capital letters are, of course, obligatory.
In the case of the reform of the Lords, attention has been focused on a plan to allow one member of the public to nominate another as a life peer. That this measure will take effect while hereditary peers are on their way out is presented as a guarantee that the new Lords will be more representative. This measure is designed to divert attention from the two main criticisms that have been voiced of Blair's proposed reform of the Lords. First, the compromise reached by the Prime Minister and the then leader of the Conservative opposition in the Lords, Viscount Robert Cranborne, to allow the retention of 91 hereditary peers in the initial period of transition. Whatever the number of such posts finally agreed, all those nominated will be vetted by a newly created seven-member Appointments Commission.