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04 September 2008 / Mark Ryan
Issue: 7335 / Categories: Opinion , Constitutional law
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The house that Jack built

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Reforming the House of Lords: a constitutional quagmire? By Mark Ryan

Jack Straw the secretary of state for justice and lord chancellor, announced the publication of the long-awaited government white paper on reform of the House of Lords (An Elected Second Chamber: Further Reform of the House of Lords, Cm 7438) on 14 July 2008. This paper followed the parliamentary votes in March 2007 on the future composition of a fully reformed second chamber, which had been triggered by an earlier white paper (The House of Lords: Reform Cm 7027). In these votes the House of Commons voted to remove the remaining hereditary peers, as well as simultaneously voting for both the options of a wholly elected and an 80% elected House. The House of Lords voted overwhelmingly, rather unsurprisingly, to approve a fully appointed House. These votes led to the resumption of crossparty talks chaired by Straw who envisaged that a further white paper would be published around the turn of the year.

Composition
The 2008 white paper puts forward only two

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