The British government on Wednesday announced plans to abolish the 92 seats in the House of Lords reserved for hereditary MPs, reviving reforms of the unelected chamber introduced under Tony Blair’s Labour government in the 1990s.
King Charles III opened the first parliamentary session following Keir Starmer’s general election victory for the Labour Party, saying the removal of peers’ right to sit and vote in the Lords was part of “measures to modernise” Britain’s uncodified constitution.
The Labour Party won a landslide victory in the election on 4 July, returning it to power for the first time since 2010, and giving it the opportunity to enact its manifesto promises, including the much-discussed Lords reforms.
There have long been calls for reform of the unelected upper house of Parliament, to make it more representative and not “a house full of idiosyncrasies and pastimes”, as one newspaper columnist described it in 2022.
But the scope of Labor’s plan remains unclear.
The abolition of the hereditary peers (hundreds of members of the aristocracy whose titles are inherited) has been described as “the first step towards wider reform”.
“The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords has become outdated and indefensible,” the government said in a briefing note released alongside the King’s Speech.
Removal of hereditary seats
The House of Lords, with around 800 MPs, is larger than any other peer house in a democracy.
Its members, whose current average age is 71, are mostly appointed for life.
These include former MPs, usually appointed by retired prime ministers, as well as people nominated after serving in prominent positions in the public or private sector, and clergy from the Church of England.
The primary role of this centuries-old chamber is to scrutinise the government.
It cannot repeal bills sent to it from the popularly elected House of Commons, but it can amend bills, delay them, and initiate new draft legislation.
This work sometimes puts the Lords in the political spotlight, such as during the recent delay of the previous Conservative government’s controversial Rwandan deportation plan – which the new government promptly scrapped.
Like the Commons, the Lords also has special scrutiny committees.
The bill proposed by the new government reconsiders the House of Lords reform agenda begun by Blair’s Labour government in the late 1990s.
His government intended to abolish all the seats of the hundreds of hereditary members who at that time sat in the House.
But ultimately 92 was retained, which was considered a temporary compromise.
“After 25 years, they have become part of the status quo not by plan but by accident,” Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government said in a briefing.
It states, “No other modern comparable democracy allows individuals to sit and vote in their legislatures based on birthright.”
“It is extremely rare for a seat in Parliament to be held on a hereditary basis.”
‘Overdue and necessary’
The government said the reforms were partly motivated by the gender imbalance in hereditary peerages – currently all peerages are male, as most peerages are inherited only through the male lineage.
The situation is better for the rest of the House of Lords, where 242 of the other members, or 36 per cent, are women.
Starmer’s new administration also argues that hereditary peerages are too politically “stable” for a democracy.
Of the 92 seats allocated to them under the 1999 reforms, 42 are for the Conservatives, 28 for the so-called crossbenchers, three for the Liberal Democrats and just two for Labour.
Meanwhile, 15 members are elected by the whole House from among the hundreds of hereditary members that exist across Britain.
Reformers also argue that hereditary peers do not face a justification check, whereas life peers must go through the scrutiny of the House of Lords Appointments Committee.
The government argued that “in the 21st century, there should not be around 100 seats reserved for individuals who were born into a particular family, nor should the seats be effectively reserved for men only.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
