Conference Papers - The Future of the House of Lords

Obviously, as the government moved to implement the ‘first stage’ of Lords reform – the expulsion of the bulk of the hereditary peers – the existence of the Royal Commission enabled them to claim that they were serious about moving on to ‘stage two’. [...] Of course the members of the Royal Commission were unanimous that there should be a significant minority of ‘regional members’ in the second chamber, chosen in a way which reflects the balance of political opinion within each of the nations and regions of the United Kingdom. [...] The Decision in McGonnell and the Royal Commission’s Findings The rest of my comments concern the application of the reasoning in McGonnell to the Commission’s report: Recommendations 57 and 58 and the Law Lords; Paragraphs 9.11 and 9.12 18 and the Lord Chancellor. [...] Concluding Remarks The Human Rights Act, the devolution Acts, all of 1998, and House of Lords reform have all previously raised questions about the functions, structure and operation of the UK’s top courts (the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, and the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council). [...] 21 The Future of the House of Lords: the Law Lords Andrew Le Sueur Reader in Laws, University College London Introduction Most of the important questions about modernising the work of the Law Lords fell outside the Royal Commission’s terms of reference.