Lord Hurd said the commission had not decided to back the abolition of hereditary peers.
Removal of the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
BBC: News | Talking Politics | Constitutional Reform since 1997
The upper house still, somewhat incredibly, contains 92 hereditary peers, alongside the mass of appointed ones.
All this sets the scene for the main battle over expelling hereditary peers next year.
The principal titles of barely 30 of the 750-odd hereditary peers were created before 1500.
Fully 92 hereditary peers still sit in the Lords, together with 26 Anglican bishops.
The House of Commons is booting the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords.
Few parliamentarians combine experience of the Commons with a feel for the thinking of the hereditary peers.
After constitutional reforms in 1999, all but 92 hereditary peers were expelled from the House of Lords.
But much of his speech was devoted to extolling the virtues of hereditary peers, such as himself.
Nevertheless, the votes of hereditary peers have been needed to secure all but one of the government's defeats.
Viscount Ridley, a scientist and journalist, was elected by other Conservative hereditary peers following the death of Earl Ferrers.
But sacking the hereditary peers is not an adequate reform on its own.
He half-reformed the House of Lords by evicting most of its hereditary peers.
The forefathers of many hereditary peers won their titles by being the favourites, financial backers or time-servers of former rulers.
However indefensible hereditary peers may be, the Lords will need further reform if it is to do its job without them.
Theoretically, a House of Lords shorn of hereditary peers could have more scope for embarrassing the government than the present one.
And, despite the abolition of the vast majority of the hereditary peers, there is still a powerful pro-hunting lobby amongst peers.
The Lords has become more stubborn since the last Labour government ejected most hereditary peers, making the upper house less ridiculous.
If Mr Blair does no more than abolish hereditary peers, Britain's House of Lords will look very similar to the Canadian senate.
It limited New Labour's "bold" reform to the abolition of places in the Lords for most - but not all - hereditary peers.
Busy with devolution, abolishing hereditary peers and other contitutional changes, the government has been reluctant to address the issue of Britain's highest court.
Next, having ditched their defence of the hereditary peers, the Conservatives aim to set out their policy on wider parliamentary reform around Easter.
Labour's manifesto said clearly that the party intended to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.
Nothing, to judge by the proposals Tony Blair's Labour government unveiled this week to reform the House of Lords by sacking the hereditary peers.
The bill originally contained plans to reform the appointment of life peers and prevent existing hereditary peers being replaced in the House when they die.
John Palmer, the 4th Earl of Selborne, was one of the hereditary peers who remained in the House of Lords following the reforms of 1999.
On October 14th, Baroness Jay, the Lords leader, announced a Royal Commission to propose changes to the second chamber once hereditary peers have been removed.
Lord Cranborne has now publicly accepted that hereditary peers must go.
In an article for The Independent, Mr Clegg said he wanted Parliament to quickly adopt new powers to sack corrupt MPs and to abolish hereditary peers.
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