These 92 were elected from within those who had had a right to be members of the House of Lords as a result of their hereditary status. This arrangement was stated to be purely temporary until the second stage of reform was completed. This led to some claims (perhaps not all serious) that the elected Hereditary Lords were the only democratic members of the House. In 1999 a Royal Commission was appointed, under Lord Wakeham, to examine proposals for Lords Reform and make recommendations. It published its report in 2000 with 132 recommendations of which the main were:  In a debate in the House of Lords on 7 March 2000, Baroness Jay expressed the Government's broad acceptance of the Commission's report: The Government accept the principles underlying the main elements of the Royal Commission's proposals on the future role and structure of this House, and will act on them. That is, we agree that the Second Chamber should clearly be subordinate, largely nominated but with a minority elected element and with a particular responsibility to represent the regions. We agree there should be a statutory appointments commission ... On 4 May 2000 the Prime Minister announced the membership of a non-statutory Appointments Commission. In the debate in the Commons on 19 June 2000 the Government announced the establishment of a Joint Committee of both houses to consider the Royal Commission's work. But in a written reply on 6 March 2001 the Government stated there was little prospect of a Joint Committee being established in the present Parliament due to a failure of cross-party discussions. On 26 April 2001 the Queen confirmed her intention to create 15 new non-party-political members of the House of Lords termed "People's Peers". In the May 2001 general election, all three main parties included statements on House of Lords reform in their manifestos. On 7 November 2001, the government launched a white paper and consultation stating: A credible and effective second chamber is vital to the health of Britain's democracy ... The Government is determined to proceed with this wider reform of the House of Lords. The Royal Commission offered an excellent way forward and the Government has a clear electoral mandate to undertake it. Our mission is to equip the British people with a Parliament and a constitution fit for the 21st century. A reformed second chamber has an indispensable role to play, and this White Paper prepares the way for its introduction. In the white paper, although the government said it "strongly endorsed" the Royal Commission's views, it listed its own proposals:  The white paper invited comments from interested parties stating the government intended to introduce legislation "incorporating decisions on the issues raised in the consultation" and listed the following as the main points of consultation:  The result was that an unprecedented 1101 submissions were made to the consultation and both the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties published their own proposals during the consultation in January 2002.