Peter Hain will lead the call for Britain to switch to the Austrialian-style system of AV for the primary chamber - combined with a reformed upper chamber to be elected by PR - in an address to the Labour Campaign for Electoral Reform later today..

Already five of the six deputy leadership candidates have signed up in support of the Campaign for a Democratic Upper House.

Only the Labour party has a longstanding commitment to reform the Lords, it is something that has been part of the Labour movements struggle for a better and more equal society since the birth of the Parliamentary Labour Party. In the 1910 election, nearly 100 years ago – the Labour party increased its MP’s from 29 to 40 after the House of Lords blocked the ‘peoples budget’. The Lords was hereditary, unaccountable, overwhelmingly biased towards a single party regardless of public opinion and militant in defence of the interests of one class above all others. Arguably only one of these criticisms has been fully overcome in the last century. Having pushed through some reforms in the last 10 years we must move to entrench a truly democratic legacy – Labour must live up to our constitutional commitment to putting ‘power in the hands of the many not the few’. Only the Labour party can fully see through these reforms, they will never happen under a Conservative regime – we must deliver then on our destiny, and drive through these reforms completing a journey started nearly one hundred years ago.

Brown should stake out the progressive ground on Lords reform

About time too.

Won't be fully democratic untill its fully elected, but its a start.