THE launch of Labour’s “New Britain” paper comes amid reports of tensions between Sir Keir Starmer and Gordon Brown over the speed of reform.

Replacing the House of Lords with a new Assembly Of The Regions And Nations is one of the key asks of the former prime minister, but over the weekend Sir Keir suggested it might not be deliverable in the first term of his administration.

The report by Labour’s Commission On The UK’s Future, published today, makes 40 recommendations, including a number of measures on restoring trust in politics.

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As well as reforming the Lords, ex-PM Mr Brown calls for MPs to be banned from having second jobs.

He also recommends the creation of a new anti-corruption agency, the Integrity and Ethics Commission.

Alongside this will be a “citizens’ jury” to be “sworn in every year to oversee the system.”

He said the changes were needed because of Boris Johnson.

“You’ve got a prime minister who has been called before the House of Commons for misleading them, and you’ve got ethics advisers who have resigned because they do not believe ethics are being pursued properly at the centre,” he told journalists yesterday.

“The criticisms people have of Westminster, Whitehall, are very strong, and change has got to be important to sorting that out.”

He said the House of Lords was “emblematic of that.”

However, peers have warned that attempting to scrap the Lords could mean Sir Keir using “up a lot of political capital at the expense of other domestic 
reforms if he goes too fast on this.”

One told the Observer: “It sounds a good idea but, in the past, attempts to reform the Lords have led into a political quagmire.”

Asked about the comments, Mr Brown said it was telling the peers had not been willing to put their names to their quotes.

“The issue is that the current House of Lords is indefensible and the implementation of any reforms are a matter now for Keir Starmer. We have made a recommendation.”

He said that every second chamber in the world, “with very few exceptions”, is usually smaller than the first chamber. He pointed to the US Senate which has 100 members covering a country of 300 million people.

“We’ve got a House of Lords that is 800-plus to cover only 60 million people and therefore the system is indefensible and I don’t think anybody can actually by name defend the current system.”

Speaking to the Times about when he could deliver change, Sir Keir said: “Whether it’s the reforms in this report or more generally, it is realistically going to take more than one term for Labour to turn our country around.”