Salisbury convention

   The convention developed shortly after the formation of the post-1945 Labour Government that the House of Lords would not vote down the second reading of any legislative proposals which had been included in the election manifesto of the winning party. Named after the person responsible for originally stating the doctrine, the convention has been in force ever since, although in its more assertive mood of recent years, the House of Lords has shown a greater willingness to challenge ministerial policies. A number of peers take the view that the convention was designed to protect a non-Conservative Government from being thwarted by a builtin hereditary and pro-Conservative majority in the chamber. They suggest that its impact has been diminished, in part because the original House has not existed since 1999 (because of the near-abolition of hereditary peerages) and also because the level of popular support for the Government elected in 2005 is much lower (35.2 per cent) than that which applied to the Attlee Government elected 60 years earlier.