Britain’s hereditary lawmaker Richard Fletcher-Vain, known as Lord Inglewood, will no longer be traveling the few hundred miles from his country home in northwest England to the House of Lords in London any time soon – and he’s not happy about it. Are.
“Anybody who’s been sacked doesn’t like it, especially if you feel you’re being sacked for a bad reason,” he told AFP in Hutton-in-the-Forest, near Penrith. His massive home, built in 1350, is 300 miles (480 kilometers) from Cumbria, the UK capital.
The Labor government elected earlier this year is scrapping 92 seats reserved for peers who inherited their status as members of an aristocratic family, as the centre-left party reforms the unelected upper house of parliament. Moving forward to.
Britain is an anomaly among Western governments in having MPs who hold titles such as Duke, Earl, Viscount and Baron.
According to the UK government, Lesotho in Southern Africa is the only country in the world that has a hereditary element in its legislature.
Government minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said in September that it was “out of step with modern Britain” when he introduced legislation that would eliminate dynasty members from the Lords.
The proposals were quickly approved by the House of Commons, the lower house, and will be debated in the Lords on Wednesday.
Fletcher-Vane, who travels to the Lords by train most weeks, took up his seat after becoming 2nd Baron Inglewood following the death of his father in 1989.
He served as a junior minister for the Conservative Party in the mid-1990s and is a former Member of the European Parliament.
The 73-year-old now sits as an independent cross-bencher.
At Hutton-in-the-Forest, where 500-year-old tapestries adorn the walls, Fletcher-Vain acknowledges that peerages by birthright are anachronistic in today’s world.
But he also defended the contributions of several hereditary peers, some of whose titles had remained in his family for centuries.
‘My life has been normal’
“I’ve always tried to take it seriously,” Fletcher-Wayne said, claiming to be “a voice” for the north of England.
The Lords, whose primary role is to scrutinize government legislation, consists of approximately 800 members, most of whom are appointed for life by outgoing Prime Ministers, sometimes as a less-than-subtle reward for political loyalty. In.
Members include former MPs, people nominated after serving in major public or private sector roles, and senior clerics of the Church of England.
John Attlee, 2nd Earl Attlee and grandson of former Labor Prime Minister Clement Attlee, is another hereditary peer preparing to hand back the red ermine-clad robes adorned by the Lords.
He entered the Chamber in 1992 after a career in road transport operations and as a member of the British Army Volunteer Reserve Force.
“Because I’ve had a normal life, I have experience and knowledge that others have, or very few people in Parliament have,” the 68-year-old told AFP over coffee in the Lords guest room.
‘Life beyond the Lords’
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s party, which returned to power for the first time in 14 years in July, is reviving reforms initiated under Tony Blair’s Labor government in the late 1990s.
Blair’s intention was to abolish all the seats of the hundreds of hereditary members then sitting in the House. But ultimately they retained 92, which was considered a temporary compromise.
“Reform of the House of Lords has been on the political agenda to some extent for more than a century,” Daniel Governor, a constitutional expert at Queen Mary University of London, told AFP.
This left hereditary peers for decades feeling like they were on borrowed time.
Attlee said, “I always hoped that the system would have been changed before my turn came.”
But reform has proven a thorny issue for successive administrations, as officials have struggled to propose better alternatives.
The government says it eventually wants to replace the Lords with an alternative, more representative second house of Britain.
But campaign groups such as the Electoral Reform Society want more comprehensive reform.
It states that the Lords is “the world’s second largest legislative chamber, after China’s National People’s Congress”, and calls for a “smaller, elected chamber” to work alongside the elected Commons.
Some colleagues are criticized for rarely coming. Those who do so are eligible to claim a daily allowance of up to £361 ($460) and travel expenses.
Fletcher-Wayne said she thinks eliminating hereditary peerages is a “crude” reform when she believes she contributes more than many life peerages.
He said his last day, possibly next year, would be “sad” but not entirely unfamiliar as he had previously lost a European Parliament seat.
“I’ve been through all this before and there’s life beyond it,” he said.
