In spite of its anomalous composition, the House of Lords is the best bit of our system. The House does succeed in blocking some bad legislation, and fear of what the Lords might do to its legislative programme can cause the government to think twice before pushing a particularly outrageous piece of legislation.

A recent example of this was the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill 2006. The stated object of the Bill was to allow the government to rationalise some unnecessarily burdensome regulation. Leaving aside the question of whether existing legislation properly applied, could have done the job, or whether wholesale scrapping of regulation is a good idea anyway, the Bill in the form in which it was introduced to the House of Commons gave excessive powers to ministers. So draconian were these powers, that the Bill was dubbed the 'Abolition of Parliament Bill'.

The Bill got through the House of Commons committee stage (in which detailed amendments are considered by standing committees) unscathed. It was only when select committees reported that the full implications of the Bill were realised by most MPs. MPs had believed government assurances that the Bill was harmless. In response to the uproar this caused the government radically revised it before it completed its passage in the Commons. It therefore reached the Lords in a much more acceptable form. Had the Lords not been there to savage it however, it is doubtful if the government would have bothered.

Another good feature of the Lords is the quality of its committee work. This was recognised by Tony Wright MP, Chair of the Public Administration Select Committee who commented they ought to do more of it.

The House of Lords has its limitations however. It is known as the voluntary chamber. Peers get no salary - only an attendance allowance and only a small proportion attend regularly. Also if the House caused the government sufficient embarrassment it could be packed with government appointees (as Lloyd George threatened in order to get the 1911 Parliament Act through). In the worst case this could be the prelude to abolition.