U-turn over reform of Lords

The Lord Chancellor was today said to have suffered a "humiliation" after he was forced into a U-turn on plans to reform the House of Lords.

In a surprise announcement, Lord Irvine said MPs and peers would jointly be allowed to draw up a plan for a new second chamber - likely to produce a majority of elected members.

The move effectively tore up Lord Irvine's earlier plans to have only one fifth of peers directly elected.

He and Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott had fought a bitter Cabinet battle over their plans, arguing that increasing the number of elected lords would threaten the supremacy of the Commons.

But they were forced to climb down after strong resistance both inside the Cabinet - particularly from Commons leader Robin Cook - and a large body of Labour MPs.

Today the Tories gleefully welcomed the U-turn and attacked Lord Irvine. Shadow cabinet minister Tim Collins claimed: "It's a humiliation for Lord Irvine but a very welcome U-turn."

The policy change effectively tears up five years' work on how the new House of Lords should look, including a Royal Commission and a fullscale set of government proposals.

But ministers knew they would face a massive backbench revolt if they tried to force their unpopular plans through parliament.

Mr Cook said he wanted to establish-a "principled consensus" on the way forward.

He said he was sure a planned joint committee of MPs and peers would not take long to come up with a fresh scheme, 90 years after the first attempts to reform the upper House. He said: "I have no intention of waiting another 90 years. I hope we can make progress in 90 days."

Labour MP Tony Wright, chairman of the all-party public administration committee, said the new plan would "clear away the blockages to the reform process continuing".

Some Tories warned that the move could amount to an indefinite postponement of the reform process.

Shadow Commons leader Eric Forth said Mr Cook and Lord Irvine were like "Laurel and Hardy", adding: "A fine mess you have got us into now." The Liberal Democrats welcomed Mr Cook's proposals as a "victory against the odds in Cabinet".

The party's leader in the Lords, Baroness Williams, said there was now a good chance that in future a majority of the peers would be elected.

One of the objections to the original plans was they could greatly extend the Prime Minister's powers of patronage and lead to a second chamber stuffed with "Tony's cronies."

Today's move followed a proposal in January by Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith for a US-style Senate with 80 per cent of peers elected. Tony Blair denounced this as a "recipe for deadlock".

The end of January saw the close of the consultation process on Lords reform. Two weeks later, the all-party Commons Public Administration Committee produced a report calling for a second chamber with 60 per cent elected members.

Mr Cook said Lord Irvine had been "magnanimous" in agreeing that the Government had "failed to produce a consensus" on its earlier plans for only one fifth of peers to be elected.

He said that it was now for Parliament to decide how to proceed and that both he and Lord Irvine would "respect" whatever conclusion it came to.

He added that he hoped by the time of the next general election people would be able to vote for peers and that the "hereditary principle" had been totally removed from parliament.