Date published: 2007/03/07
The BBC says:
MPs have voted to reform the House of Lords by demanding all members are elected, rather than appointed.
There was a majority of 113 in favour of this proposal.
MPs, allowed more than one choice, also voted by a majority of 38 for 80% of members of a reformed second chamber being elected and the rest appointed.
The decisions will not pass into law but are expected to inform government plans. Commons leader Jack Straw called the votes "a historic step forward".
Mr Straw had put forward nine options, with the rest rejected by MPs.
He pledged to bring a cross-party group together to discuss the next stage of reform.
Prime Minister Tony Blair voted in favour of a 50/50 split between elected and appointed members - also Mr Straw's preferred choice - but not for any other proposal.
...
At the moment all peers are appointed, apart from the 92 hereditary peers who survived the first phase of Lords reform during Tony Blair's first term in office.In another vote, MPs decided by a majority of 280 to remove the remaining hereditaries.
By accident more than by design, the Commons seems to have arrived at the correct decision. Of course the devil is in the detail. Will the government come up with a proposal for an all-elected Lords that makes sense? And will it be passed in the end?
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