ABSTRACT
With regard to the reform and modernisation of Parliament, the 1964-1970 Labour Governments are probably best remembered for the abortive attempt to reform the House of Lords. That a major bill to remove hereditary peers, and to reconstitute the basis of membership for the upper House, should have received all-party endorsement, been introduced as a Government bill, received a comfortable majority at second reading, then been abandoned in committee, was remarkable. The repercussions of the loss of this bill, the Parliament (No. 2) Bill, were still being felt thirty years later when the Blair Government made the next serious attempt to reform the Lords. Yet when the Labour Party narrowly won the 1964 election, it was not House of Lords reform that was uppermost in its mind, but reform of the House of Commons, and whilst progress in this sphere may have seemed modest at the time, there were some changes whose significance have only become apparent or appreciated in the years since.
