Today sees the end of an 800 year old tradition in Britain, as some 771 hereditary peers lose their privileged seats in the House of Lords. They will be replaced by life peers nominated by the Labour government, although a transitional group of 75 elected by the hereditaries will serve until the next phase of reform is introduced. Thus the institution will remain in being. A government commission will report next month on what its continuing functions should be and on how best to arrange its representation. This decision fulfils an undertaking contained in Labour's 1997 election manifesto and spelled out in last year's Hereditary Peers Bill. In a long perspective it brings to an end the political role of the landed classes which began in feudal times. It finally resolves a conflict involving the House of Commons and the House of Lords which began at the beginning of this century between the Liberal majority in the lower house and the Conservative dominated upper one; it is a testament to the extraordinary continuity of political traditions in Britain as well as their archaism that such arrangements should have lasted nearly into the twenty-first century.
Looking to the future, the upper chamber clearly has an important role to play within the British political system. The House of Lords has overseen up to 1,500 amendments to legislation every year, often at the government's instigation. It deliberates and debates legislation and current issues, often in a less frenzied or partisan fashion than the lower house. Its specialist committees, especially on EU secondary legislation, have an exemplary record. Its rarely used powers of delay can hold up legislation for up to a year. It has limited powers to act as a constitutional check within the political system and the Law Lords serve as a court of final resort in the legal one.
Many of the hereditary peers have been effectively irrelevant to these functions because they so rarely participated in its deliberations. By virtue of their base in the landed classes they did, however, have a rough and ready territorial distribution, even if they are unrepresentative of the populations there. So far there has been strikingly little discussion about making the territorial basis of the upper house more representative of the emerging shape of politics in a Britain where power has been devolved to legislatures, assemblies and executives in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales - and in which the same thing is likely to happen in the regions and major cities of England. Until the commission reports it may be unrealistic to expect that discussion to be fully articulated. But were the hereditary principle to be replaced entirely by prime ministerial nomination many peoples' suspicions of Mr Blair's preference for centralism and cronyism would be confirmed. Britain is undergoing major constitutional change when full account is taken of these reforms, devolution, independence for the Bank of England, introduction of proportional representation for Europe and the increased use of referendums. Paradoxically, it is proceeding without great popular or ministerial engagement or enthusiasm. That will change when the new dynamics start to assert themselves fully.