Reform of the British House of Lords in the Light of the Report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee 2017

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the analysis of the latest concept regarding the reform of the House of Lords. This concept appeared in October 2017 with the publication of the Report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee. The Report contains recommendations aimed at limiting the number of members of the House of Lords, as this is a fundamental problem that this chamber of the British Parliament is currently facing. The author begins by analyzing the actual state and circumstances that led to a revival of the discussion on the reform of the House of Lords. Then he presents the most important assumptions of the Lord Speaker’s Committee, evaluates them, and tries to prove the thesis that they are unlikely to come into force, at least in this form. This is due to both internal conditions related to the British constitutional order and external conditions, because today the United Kingdom faces great challenges on the international arena, through which the challenges of constitutional changes are considered to be secondary in the eyes of British politicians.