Publication of a bill to remove the remaining 92 hereditary legislators from the second chamber has been unexpectedly delayed. This follows the refusal of the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parities to join a joint committee of MPs to work on a plan for an indirectly elected House of Lords unless the government dropped the bill. They believe that it cannot be relied on to implement further reform once the hereditary legislators have gone. They want the government to postpone the removal of the hereditaries until there is certainty that appointed legislators will not replace them.
The government had hoped that the joint committee would help overcome opposition to its bill to. It expects that legislators-for-life will try to block the bill in the House of Lords. And members of its own party in the House of Commons may try to amend it to make the removal of the hereditary legislators conditional on further reform.