Pro-reform MPs fear Lords committee will be packed with loyalists

An all-party committee on the future of the House of Lords will be confirmed by MPs today despite fears that it has been packed with Labour loyalists opposed to a substantially elected second chamber.

But pro-reform MPs will press for proposals on the broad composition of the Lords to be brought forward before Parliament breaks for the summer, in an effort to prevent traditionalists allowing the issue to drift.

The former cabinet minister Jack Cunningham, a sceptic about a wholly elected second chamber, is expected to be elected chairman when MPs vote on the committee's membership today. The joint committee of Commons and Lords will draw up options for the future composition and powers of the Lords.

Of the eight Labour MPs nominated for the committee, only one, Chris Bryant, MP for Rhondda, is an enthusiastic advocate of a fully elected upper house. At least two MPs, Terry Rooney and Stephen McCabe, are set firmly against the idea, while most of the others are wary of radical change. The Labour composition of the committee will disappoint reformers such as Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, who had appeared to have won his battle with Lord Irvine of Lairg, the Lord Chancellor, over the issue.

Pro-reform backbenchers insisted yesterday that reform could still progress if the committee, which will have 12 Labour members out of 24 places, has the will not to delay proposals. One MP said: "I don't think the committee is packed with people opposed to reform. The 'antis' could put forward proposals which satisfy them, such as having no elected peers."

After Lord Irvine's plans for 20 per cent elected members were heavily criticised by Labour backbenchers, Mr Cook persuaded Downing Street that a joint committee on reform was needed to achieve consensus.

But Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, made plain the Government's determination not to be pressurised with the list of MPs' names she revealed to the party's Parliamentary Committee last night. The Labour MPs are Mr Cunningham, Mr Bryant, Mr Rooney, Mr McCabe, Janet Anderson, Joyce Quin, Clive Soley and Paul Stinchcombe.

There will be three Tories, William Hague, Kenneth Clarke and James Arbuthnot, who will press for an 80 per cent elected House of Lords, as will the Liberal Democrat MP on the committee, Paul Tyler.

The committee also includes four Labour peers, four Tories, two Liberal Democrats and two crossbenchers but no bishops.