Lord Speaker the bar, and finish by walking up the Temporal (opposition) side toward the Woolsack. The Mace is placed on the Woolsack, where the Lord Speaker sits after a bishop has led the House in prayers. When the Sovereign appoints Lords Commissioners to perform certain actions on his or her behalf (for example, to open or prorogue Parliament, or formally declare Royal Assent), the Lord Speaker is one of them. The other Lords Commissioners, by convention, are the Leader of the House (who has acted as the principal Commissioner since the Lord Chancellor's functions were transferred to the Lord Speaker), the
Reform of the House of Lords Next Steps for the House of Lords", which gave as its main proposals: The paper also started a second consultation, on the Appointments Commission for the House of Lords requesting submissions on how the Appointments Commission itself would be appointed, even though no other alternatives to an appointed Commission had been considered. Reaction to the paper was hostile: for example, Lord Goodhart, the Liberal Democrat spokesperson on Constitutional Affairs, said "the overwhelming reaction I have is a feeling of contempt and betrayal". On 18 March 2004 (before the statistical analysis had been published), the BBC reported that the government would