A deal on the Lords that rival parties could hardly reject

Written by Peter Riddell and published in The Times on Mon 10th Apr 2006

Any compromise could involve codifying some of the current conventions (as proposed by a working group of Labour peers in 2004) on the handling of most legislation. This would apply to manifesto Bills, hard though it is to define them, as the row over the Identity Cards Act showed. But, as a balance, the Lords should be given "the power to delay, for the lifetime of a Parliament, changes to designated legislation reducing individual or constitutional rights". These are the words of the 1992 Labour manifesto, before the party became cautious on the Lords. That could be the basis of a deal that would be hard for the Tories and Lib Dems to refuse.

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Full article.

UK Polling Report: Contradictory views on the House of Lords.