Put the House in order: With the Lords remaining so large and corrupt, a radical transformation is needed to restore its prestige

When it was a purely hereditary chamber, it used to be said that the best thing to do with the House of Lords was to leave it as it was or abolish it – but never try to reform it. Some years after the Blair government removed most of the hereditary element and the Lords’ judicial function was hived off to the Supreme Court, the effects of this half-finished reform are apparent. For all of the excellent work that its committees and members do, the Lords is too large, too corrupt and too unrepresentative. That is not a good place for any chamber in any parliament to be.