During my lifetime, I've seen the power of the House of Lords eroded. What power remains?

Question

I'm an American atty, which is a combination of barrister and solicitor under the British system. I teach courses in Constitutional law. Many of our fundamental principles of law stem from the Magna Carta. To some degree, our Senate was based on the House of Laws. We just did not have heritary peerships. Does your House of Lords have any significant power left?

Answer 1

I'm am American too, but I did do research on the recent changes to the House of Lords.

Basically, the House of Commons can override the Lords on any matter. Money bills can only be delayed for about 30 days by the Lords, other legislation can only be delayed for two legislative sessions, or about one calendar year. The only measure that absolutely must gain the support of the Lords in order to pass is a bill that would extend the length of a Parliament beyond 5 years.

There are other conventions and traditions which further limit the power of the House of Lords. Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the body, check it out.

Basically, the Chamber now exists (theoretically, at least) to provide one more opportunity to scrutinize legislation in the United Kingdom. The body is probably at least as powerful as the Canadian Senate, which has also been the subject of calls for reform lately.