Letter: Listen to the Lords

Sir: The Prime Minister argues, with merit, that the rejection of a Bill on elections to the European Parliament makes it easier to remove the voting rights of hereditary peers ("Blair vows Lords' defiance will be the last roar of the dinosaurs", 19 November). But while he had already committed to this, the hereditary peers' replacement is still to be decided.

Your leader acknowledges that it is the role of the second chamber to ask the Commons to think again ("Lords sully their reputation as they slink into oblivion", 19 November). Their Lordships did ask this. The Government did not think of the European Parliament issue again - it merely argued against the right of the Lords to ask.

If the Bill is just a theatre for the battle over the democracy of the Lords it is one which shows their raison d'etre rather well. For the time being, the Lords is the second chamber. Is there any point in any revising chamber if the Government refuses even to reconsider what is after all a major constitutional change to an existing right?

The Lords, for all its faults, does act as a check against the rasher actions of the democratically-elected government, and governments should at least listen to their wisdom.

Tony Blair has been in office only 18 months. Already, he plans to replace the Lords with his appointees. He plans to replace individual Euro MPs with his appointees, to the extent that he can. Lord Jenkins has recommended that he tinker with the election of the Commons.

The conclusion is that, once democratically elected, a leader can create the entire executive in his own image, and may make whatever constitutional reforms he wishes through them.

MARTIN BROWN

Liphook, Hampshire