91Èȱ¬

On a street corner inside the conference area this afternoon, I came across an old friend, Baron Monkswell, whom I first knew in Stockport 35 years ago when he was just plain Gerry Collier.

Lord Monkswell is one of just 18 or so hereditary peers who support the Labour Party.

He's in Brighton this week, as most years, acting as a conference steward. He wears the usual flourescent yellow stewards' jacket, rather different from the red ermine robes of the House of Lords, where he sat as a Labour peer, until most of the hereditaries were expelled from the house a decade ago.

Monkswell failed to secure election as one of the 92 hereditaries allowed to remain in the upper house. And he failed again at a subsequent by-election (where, absurdly, the electorate was just three people - the three Labour hereditaries who survived after the fourth Labour hereditary died).

Yesterday Gordon Brown told the Labour conference that the "hereditary principle" would be removed from the Lords within the next 12 months. It sounded like a new pledge to expel all hereditaries from the Lords within a year. In fact it merely means the abolition of the by-election system which allows hereditaries who die to be replaced.

Brown's pledge is nothing new. Jack Straw announced it a few weeks ago. So even if the change goes through hereditaries will survive in the upper house until further reform, or they all die out (which could take 50 or 60 years) .

As for Lord Monkswell, he's totally against having any hereditary peers in the Lords, yet he confirms as long as the current system remains as it is, he will contest any by-elections until the system is changed.

So he may have only a few months to get back to the Lords benches. And that will depend anyway on one of the existing four Labour hereditary peers dying, and his winning the subsequent by-election.