ABSTRACT
Both the Labour and Liberal Democrat Parties have long had proposals to reform the House of Lords. As seen above, the current Labour government is translating its commitment into reality, as a first step removing the right of the majority of hereditary peers to sit and vote. In the past, the Labour Party has advocated total abolition of the Upper House. Much of the antagonism to the Lords stems from basic principles of democracy, its opponents focusing on the fundamental paradox of a sophisticated democratic state having, as part of its legislative body, an unelected and democratically unaccountable institution. The preamble to the Parliament Act 1911 envisaged replacing the House of Lords with an elected House:
And whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation ...
