Plan for regions to elect upper house

A reformed House of Lords could be indirectly elected by the English regions, Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly, the chairman of the committee responsible for drawing up options for change suggested yesterday.

Jack Cunningham, who chairs the committee of peers and MPs, insisted that reform was not dead despite the chaos caused by Tuesday's inconclusive votes when MPs rejected all proposals for a new upper house. His intervention raises the prospect of a "middle way" option for reform, stopping short of direct elections to the Lords, but making the upper house more representative.

Indirect elections could involve members of the Scottish Parliament and Welsh Assembly being elected to the chamber, with members of any English regional assemblies, due to be set up from 2006.

Downing Street has floated the idea of "tidying up" legislation to remove the right of the remaining 92 hereditary peers to pass down their titles. Aides to Tony Blair have also put forward the idea of replacing the Prime Minister's power of patronage with an independent appointments commission.

But yesterday Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, pointedly rejected proposals for legislation to remove bishops and hereditary peers. He told MPs the move would simply create an all-appointed House of Lords, the option favoured by Mr Blair. The Commons had rejected this option by the biggest margin.

Mr Cunningham told the BBC: "We would look at removing the remaining hereditary peers, we could look at the statutory independent appointments commission. We could look at the possibility of getting members into a reformed House of Lords on the basis of indirect election.

"We could consider the position of the bishops and the law lords, which were issues we parked in the first report. We could look at how we could reduce the numbers in the House of Lords. This is reform but it is not the substantive reform."

Mr Cook, a leading advocate of radical reform, warned MPs yesterday: "We will continue to look for majority support for one option, but the bottom line is there will be no reform for the House of Lords until there is a majority vote in the House of Commons."

He added: "One of the important motivations for reform is finally to remove the hereditary principle from our parliamentary system. There can be no basis for anybody playing any part in the consideration of legislation which others have to obey if they themselves are there solely by the accident and privilege of birth." But he warned that removing the hereditary peers would create an all-appointed chamber, which the Commons has rejected by a large majority.