Blair's great legacy will be Lords reform

Many, perhaps most, political changes come about by accident. Privatisation was one of them. For Mr Tony Blair's government, constitutional reform was not entirely an accident. Some of, though by no means all, the changes - for example, the abolition of the office of Lord Chancellor - were foreshadowed in the two election manifestos. But Mr Blair and his colleagues did not go round the country proclaiming that the most cherished cause of New Labour was the reform of the constitution. How could they? They would have concluded, no doubt correctly, that there were no votes in it.

But so it has turned out. Mr Blair has apparently said that if his government is remembered for anything, it will be for constitutional reform. He would presumably prefer it to be remembered for trying to make people good, often against their will; all the more so if they were unfortunate enough to live in foreign parts. But though we cannot know what posterity will decide - for posterity may, after all, have better things to do with its time - the Prime Minister's prediction seems a perfectly reasonable one to make.

The one gap concerns electoral reform. After some hesitation, Mr Blair appointed the late Lord Jenkins to conduct an inquiry. His investigations were as assiduous as his conclusions were elegant, which is what one would have expected. He recommended the alternative vote (the ballot paper marked 1, 2, 3, ...) supplemented by a "topping up" system to ensure greater proportionality, or to try to ensure it.

Mr John Prescott and others duly growled. There was a small party revolt. In vain did Mr Robin Cook and Mr Peter Mandelson - both then still in the Cabinet - try to communicate their enthusiasm for the alternative vote. Mr Blair quietly dropped the subject. He let Lord Jenkins down, as he had earlier let down Lord Ashdown, not to mention Mr Frank Dobson, and others too numerous to list; for letting people down is one of the Prime Minister's characteristics.

In years to come, I predict, when we are ruled by the Howard-Kennedy coalition (after the Conservatives have moved slightly to the left, and the Liberal Democrats slightly to the right), one of the sadly diminished number of Labour members will look into his pint of Federation ale and say: "Aye, lad, if we'd had sense to take up - what's it called now? - that fancy-dan alternative vote, things would be right better today."

But in other fields, Mr Blair has moved with what is, for him, an untypical boldness in domestic affairs. Take, for instance, the House of Lords. For about 70 years, party policy - passed by a two-thirds majority at the annual conference - was that the Lords should be abolished and that we should have a unicameral legislature. When an attempt was made to take this proposal literally by putting it in the 1979 manifesto, James Callaghan, the Prime Minister, simply said that he was not having any of it.

For quite apart from the trouble that would be caused by their abolition, the Lords as then constituted presented several advantages. Ever since the Peerage Act 1958, which established life peerages, they had been a useful source of prime ministerial patronage. And they could always be conveniently abused on account of their composition when they voted down a government measure: for were they not Tory, elderly and, worse still, unelected?

The curious thing is that exactly the same abuse is heard today when their lordships reject a Bill or inconvenience the Government in other ways, as they did last Monday. On a motion of the semi-retired law lord, Lord Lloyd, they sent the Constitutional Reform Bill to a standing committee. This is the measure that abolishes the Lord Chancellor, creates a Judicial Appointments Commission and sets up a supreme court consisting of the present law lords.

I must confess I have little faith in committees to appoint people. If there were a Political Columnists Appointments Commission chaired by, say, Lord Lipsey, I am fairly sure I should not be writing this today. Likewise, I doubt whether the new commission would have appointed the former Communist Lord Justice Sedley to the bench in the first place. However, the anomalous position of the Lord Chancellor and the law lords has been criticised for well over 50 years.

Admittedly the difficulty of the law lords' situation, as members of both the legislature and the judiciary, is more apparent than real. They rarely intrude into politics. Lord Hoffmann brought about a good deal of tut-tutting by voting in favour of Lord Lloyd's proposal. His principal defect is perhaps a tendency to be over-impressed by his own undoubted cleverness. But here I was on Lord Hoffmann's side. He felt strongly about a matter that concerned himself and he expressed his feelings in the lobby.

The position of the Lord Chancellor is, however, quite different. Sometimes he is a highly political figure, as Lord Hailsham was; sometimes he is brought in off the streets or, at any rate, off the High Court bench, as Lord Simonds was; and sometimes he is a distinguished barrister who also happens to be a friend of the Prime Minister, as Lord Irvine and Lord (Cheerful Charlie) Falconer both were. But he remains a party politician, a member of the Cabinet, though there is a wispy convention that he does not express himself in too partisan a fashion. It is a thoroughly good thing we are getting rid of him, though the announcement of his demise could undoubtedly have been better handled.

But the Lords were perfectly within their rights in sending the Bill to a committee. The abuse is now quite misplaced which we heard in Harold Wilson's and Jim Callaghan's day - and which we did not hear from Labour when their lordships were overturning assorted Conservative measures of 1979-97. This is because the present House of Lords is the creation of the present Government. The great majority of the hereditary peers have already gone, and the 92 of those that remain by election are shortly to go as well.

This week the Lords Reform Bill is to be published. The great question is whether it can be amended to allow for an elected or a part-elected second chamber. There are certainly procedural difficulties over last week's constitutional Bill. As it was introduced in the Lords rather than in the Commons - on, it seems, Cheerful Charlie's advice - it is not subject to the Parliament Acts, which enable a government to have its way after 13 months.

There is also some legal argument about the validity of the second Parliament Act of 1949, which established the 13-months limit. Before that, it was 25 months. This is precisely the sort of question which keeps lawyers in vintage port, which Mr Blair himself hates but which is, I fear, inseparable from constitutional reform.