Slow exit

Lord Freyberg is a 35-year-old sculptor with an interest in beekeeping and army pensions but he might just go down in history for something else. The youngest hereditary peer in the House of Lords also stands a statistical chance of becoming the last, under proposals being considered by the government and reported by the Guardian this week. The suggestion is that Labour's drawn-out cull of hereditary peers, which began in 1999, could leave the survivors lingering on in the Lords for the rest of their lives. This may extend Lord Freyberg's career as an amiable if unelected legislator but seems an astonishing indulgence of an indefensible principle by a government whose record on Lords reform has already been peppered with hesitation as well as progress.

Labour's 1997 manifesto promised to end "the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords" as the "first stage" of reform but the government strayed from that early on, with a backroom deal that allowed the Conservative party to rescue 92 hereditaries in return for allowing the legislation to pass. That has left the upper house with an absurd paradox: its only elected members are people born to the job. They were chosen by means of an ermine-clad election in 1999, in which franchise was granted by birthright. Since then, seven more hereditaries have arrived in equally exclusive byelections; there is even a waiting list of candidates, all of whom have done nothing more to qualify than have the right parents.

Rectifying this should be the simplest element of the next stage of Lords reform, which in other areas raises difficult questions about the chamber's composition and powers. All the main parties agree hereditaries should go. But Jack Straw, the leader of the House of Commons, who took charge of the issue from Lord Falconer in May, appears to fear that simple abolition could tangle up and delay wider reforms. A paper before the prime minister suggests they could either be left in place but not replaced, or turned into life peers, to ease the passage of more important changes.

This would compound the mistake made in 1999. There is no reason why the government should feel it needs to water down reform to suit the interests of 92 men and women who ought to have been asked to stand down long before. They would be free to run for election under the new rules, if they wanted. There is already anxiety about the government's commitment to finish off reform. Mr Straw should make sure he does not compound it.