The Royal Commission's blueprint for reform
The government's eventual blueprint for reforming the Lords was expected to draw heavily on the work of a Royal Commission, headed by the life peer and former Conservative Cabinet Minister, Lord Wakeham.
Like many other Conservatives, he dismissed it as a charter for Tony's cronies - a plan to hand too many powers of patronage to the Prime Minister himself.
As Westminster debated the government's plans to abolish hereditary peers, Lord Wakeham's Commission was simultaneously getting to grips with the alternatives.
The result, A House for the Future, was published in January 2000.
But it did acknowledge the need for greater regional representation, for broadly equal numbers of men and women and for a better reflection of modern Britain's diverse ethnic mix.
The Wakeham Commission produced more than 130 recommendations, covering every aspect of the work of the upper chamber. These are some of the key proposals:
Three alternative systems:
a) 65 regional members selected in proportion to votes cast in General Election.
Reactions: Evolution or Revolution?
After the fight the hereditary peers put up to keep their place in the House of Lords, the Wakeham Commission might have been expecting its report to be met by howls of protest. In fact, most critics have said its reforms don't go far enough.
Both Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are now demanding a far greater role for elected representatives in the new upper house.
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