Reforming the Lords

Richard Burden supports an elected second chamber

With all the attention to last week's terror alert, you can be forgiven if you didn't notice that last Thursday was Lords Reform day.

Campaigners for an elected second chamber, who'd been hoping to drum up publicity, were perhaps disappointed their efforts were overshadowed by other events.

But they do have reason to hope. Before Parliament rose for the summer, the leader of the Commons Jack Straw, who's been put in charge of constitutional reform, hinted the government might float new plans for Lords reform, with a fresh white paper perhaps suggesting a half-elected Upper House.

It's three years since the Commons last debated Lords reform - and failed to decide anything.

But the issue's come back to life and more than 120 backbench MPs have now signed a Commons motion calling for action.

One of them is Labour's Richard Burden. I asked him whether the best approach would be to let the remaining hereditary peers in the Lords die out as nature takes its course and phase in an elected element over decades.