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In all 1,152 peers are entitled to sit and vote in the upper chamber. Of these, 499 are avowedly Tories (326 hereditary), while Labour has only 160 peers (15 hereditary). The Liberal Democrats have 66 peers of whom 23 are hereditary. There are a further 326 cross-bench peers professing no party allegiance (205 hereditary), 26 bishops and archbishops and 78 miscellaneous others, almost all hereditary.The Cabinet committee is made up of Lord Irvine, the Lord Chancellor; Jack Straw, the Home Secretary; Lord Ivor Richard, Labour Leader in the Lords; Lord Denis Carter, Chief Whip in the Lords; Ann Taylor, the Leader of the Commons; Nick Brown, the Chief Whip and Peter Mandelson, the Minister without Portfolio.It will begin meeting as soon as Parliament returns from the Christmas recess on 12 January, and a spokesman for the Prime Minister said its establishment was “a clear signal of our intent to move on this issue”.Hitherto, Labour’s silence on the subject of reform of the House of Lords has been taken as a sign that the Government was in retreat, but there is now every prospect of a draft Bill next summer and a priority slot in the Queen’s Speech next November.Ministers are furious at the way that Tory “backwoodsmen” are brought into Westminster to fight policies on which Labour was elected – despite the existence of the traditional “Salisbury Doctrine” which precludes opposition in principle by the Lords to manifesto pledges approved by the voters.Labour has suffered three defeats in the Lords since coming to power eight months ago: twice on the referendums for Scottish and Welsh devolution, and once on the abolition of assisted places to public schools. On all three occasions, the Government would have won if hereditary peers had been excluded from the vote.. Three forgotten verses of “Silent Night”, Britain’s favourite carol, have been rediscovered in an Austrian manuscript more than 200 years after they were penned by a penurious priest, writes Vanessa Thorpe. The carol was first performed on Christmas Eve, 1818, inside St Nikolaus Church in Oberndorf.

At the time, Joseph Mohr, thepriest who wrote the verses, was living across the river.
Although the carol has long epitomised serenity, the verses – especially the forgotten ones -bear testament to Mohr’s life and his experiences of war.A BBC2 documentary to be screened on Christmas Eve explains how a retired teacher, Elisabeth Kruckenhauser, came across the verses in a library vault.A hard-drinking, gambling man from Salzburg, Joseph Mohr had managed to survive both war and ill-health when he wrote six verses in celebration of the birth of Christ. Although the meaning is a little opaque, Mohr’s experience of battle seemed to inspire him to pen an appeal for God-given peace.The BBC decided to recreate the first performance of “Silent Night”, which a Gallup poll found to be easily the best-loved carol in Britain, as accurately as it could. The affectionate history of the carol ends with a performance of the full text sung to a guitar accompaniment in front of the original altarpiece and its wax-figure crib scene.Here is a literal translation of the forgotten verses:Silent night! Holy night!/ That brought the world’s salvation/ from the heavens’ golden heights let us show mercy in abundance:/ Jesus in human form! Jesus in human form!Silent night! Holy night!/ Today the full might/ of fatherly love poured out/ and as a brother reverentially embraced/ Jesus the people’s world! Jesus the people’s world!Silent night! Holy night!/ Planned for us long ago/ when the Lord, freed from fury,/ promised the fathers in the mists of time/ to care for all of the world! To care for all of the world!. Tony Blair took charge of Labour’s reform of the welfare state yesterday with a warning that “the facts are alarming”. He is to chair a ministerial committee including the Chancellor, Gordon Brown, and the Secretary of State for Social Security, Harriet Harman, on the “New Deal” aimed at getting people off benefit and into work to reduce a social security budget climbing to pounds 100bn a year.
Speaking to his constituency party in Sedgefield, Co Durham, the Prime Minister argued that the welfare state established by the 1945 Attlee government had been “left behind by economic and social change”.

The UK spends more on the Department of Social Security than on education, employment, health, and law and order combined, yet the poorest 20 per cent in society now get a lower share of benefits than they did in 1979.Benefit fraud, Mr Blair contended, was running at pounds 4bn to pounds 5bn a year, enough to build 100 large hospitals. Yet almost a million pensioners do not get the income support to which they are entitled, and almost four million children are living in poverty.”They are facts. The question is not whether to reform, but what sort of reform The system is not working as the country wants it to. And yet people are saying, ‘Don’t touch the system.’ With facts like that to contend with, we have no choice We have to reform the system. If we don’t, we will fail the very people we have to help.”Mr Blair made it clear he had not ruled out changes in disability and incapacity benefits paid to 6.5 million people, which created a furore last week. These benefits cost more than the entire school budget, he said.Splits were appearing in the Cabinet’s united front on the welfare state before Mr Blair made yesterday’s pre-emptive strike. David Blunkett, the Education and Employment Secretary, has warned in a private letter to Mr Brown of his “grave anxiety” about the prospect of cuts in benefits.His three-page note, which was dated 9 December – the day before 47 Labour MPs rebelled over cuts in one-parent benefits – complained that any shift to means testing could “undermine social cohesion” and risk further back-bench revolts, particularly over industrial injuries benefit.Mr Blunkett warned that “deep cuts in the totality of support for those disabled people who cannot work or the poor who can only get very modestly paid work “would make a mockery of our professions on social exclusion and the construction of a just society”.The Cabinet is to hold a special meeting on the future of the welfare state early in the new year, to iron out a common strategy on the forthcoming Green Paper on social security.The Prime Minister insisted that the Green Paper would lay down four principles for reform:The responsibility of society to help those who are unable to look after themselves.The responsibility of individuals to provide for themselves where they can do so.For those who can work, work is the best answer to poverty; andFraud and abuse should be minimised and rooted out wherever they are found.”This is not simply about trying to rein in the growth of the welfare bills,” Mr Blair said.

“It is about a fundamental change in the culture, attitude and practice of the welfare state to create a fairer and more efficient society.”. The Archbishop of Canterbury is to deliver a 90-second soundbite sermon this afternoon which will be broadcast in every Asda store in the country via an in-store radio station. George Carey’s message is part of a 45-minute ecumenical service which is being held in the foyer of Asda’s Gravesend store at 3pm today, to be transmitted live via satellite to every one of Asda’s 216 stores nationwide.
Dr Carey agreed to record his special message to shoppers after being being asked by Asda to contribute to the chain supermarket’s carol service. He hopes to whet the spiritual appetite of non-churchgoing customers and inspire them to attend a service this Christmas.The broadcast was organised by the local churches and is timed to coincide with the busiest Sunday shopping day of the year. Orders of service will be available at customer service desks for shoppers who wish to participate in the service while shopping at other stores.A spokeswoman for Lambeth Palace insisted that Dr Carey’s contribution was “a very small part” of the supermarket’s carol service compared to the eight- to 10-minute sermon he will deliver in Canterbury Cathedral on Christmas Day.Asda approached Lambeth Palace after hearing Dr Carey’s Ashe Lecture at St Helen’s Church, Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in October, in which he singled out for praise the small but growing number of church leaders who were holding services in pubs, supermarkets and on the streets.He spoke of the need for the Church to continue to diversify in the forms of church service and from the churches where they are held.It is certainly an effective way of reaching the consuming masses: Asda FM, the in-store radio station, broadcasts to more than six million shoppers a week.From Asda’s point of view, the archbishop’s contribution is a clear endorsement of Asda’s experiment with in-store spirituality earlier this year, when it held a harvest festival service in its store at Earley, Reading.. A Majority of voters think Paymaster-General Geoffrey Robinson is wrong and hypocritical to use an offshore trust and should resign, according to a new opinion poll, writes Nick Gilbert. Mr Robinson has been under fire for being – quite legally – a “discretionary beneficiary” of the Guernsey-based Orion Trust.
Asked in an NOP poll if it was wrong and hypocritical of him to use an offshore trust – although Mr Robinson has insisted he pays all his UK tax and that the trust is not a tax-avoidance measure – 58 per cent of those polled thought he was wrong.

Just 25 per cent thought his finances were his own affair.Mr Robinson, it has also emerged, has close ties to an accountant whose employer makes money arranging tax-effective Personal Equity Plans and PEP-linked mortgages.The minister recently put forward plans to scrap PEPs and Tax Exempt Special Savings Accounts and replace them with them much less advantageous Individual Savings Accounts. Under the proposals savers would be allowed to invest a maximum of pounds 50,000 tax-free in the new ISAs.The accountant is Rob Murison, whose main job is as a director of John Charcol, a firm of independent financial advisers.The company makes its money through advisory fees and commissions and is opposed to Mr Robinson’s proposals. “Removing tax breaks does not encourage people to provide for their own future,” said Ian Darby, another Charcol director.In July, Mr Murison agreed to act as one of two directors of Stenbell, Mr Robinson’s private company. The minister resigned from the board on joining the Government. The company has played an important role in Mr Robinson’s business affairs He runs the New Statesman, which he rescued via Stenbell.