Just how committed is Labour to reforming the House of Lords?

A running joke at Westminster is that it has been Labour and Lib Dem policy to abolish the Lords for more than 100 years, writes Andrew Grice

When the crunch comes, the Labour leader may discover he has more pressing priorities (PA)

Would a Labour government replace the House of Lords with an elected second chamber of the nations and regions? It certainly sounded like it when Keir Starmer endorsed Gordon Brown’s 155-page, 43-point plan this week to reform the constitution.

However, the question of what Labour would actually do if it won power is far from settled. Starmer played for time by announcing a consultation exercise on how – not whether – to implement the report. This is a holding line that masks deep Labour divisions over Brown’s blueprint.

Some party figures, including some of Starmer’s senior aides, oppose a “big bang” reform of the Lords, warning it would suck an incoming Labour government into a quagmire. True, the issue would dominate the parliamentary timetable and might look to voters worried about the economy and public services that Starmer was fiddling while Rome burned.