DAWN - International; 14 January, 1998

Unelected Lords may lose powers to vote

LONDON, Jan 13: Britain's aristocracy will lose the centuries-old privilege of voting in the House of Lords, ministers decided on Tuesday.

A committee, charged with transforming the upper House of Lords into a modern second chamber of parliament, has planned the first steps to remove the right to vote from Lords who have inherited their seats.

"Removing the voting rights of hereditary peers was the first thing the committee discussed and legislation will be drawn up during this parliament," a government official told Reuters.

But there was no discussion as to what might replace the ancient upper house.

"The primary aim of the committee is to remove voting rights and the in-built Conservative Party majority and try and make the House of Lords more representative," the official said.

Many peers deplore the idea of ending a tradition they say provides a check against all-powerful government.

"The House of Lords is a great safeguard of parliamentary democracy," the 17th Earl of Lauderdale, Patrick Francis Maitland, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"It is an essential part of our constitution and we meddle with it at our peril."

Britain's new Labour government does not see it that way.

It asks why Lauderdale, 86, should have a vote on proposed laws simply because an ancestor who held the post of Chancellor of Scotland was awarded an earldom in 1624. Blair has forced the pace of constitutional change in his 8 months in power.-Reuters