LABOUR have sparked anger after watering down pledges to reform the House of Lords – with Scottish representatives accusing the party of offering only “bland and insipid platitudes”.
In their General Election manifesto, Keir Starmer’s party pledged a raft of changes to the unelected upper chamber at Westminster as part of an “immediate modernisation”.
These changes included mandatory retirement for peers aged 80 or over at the end of each parliament, reform of the appointments process, a new participation requirement, new processes to remove “disgraced members”, and the complete abolition of hereditary peers.
The Labour manifesto further pledged to take steps towards “replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.
However, in the King’s Speech on Wednesday, only the removal of hereditary peers was mentioned. Out of some 800 members, there are currently 92 seats, primarily Tory, reserved for hereditary peers after a 1999 deal between Tony Blair and the Conservatives kept them in place.
A second bill from the King’s Speech relating to the unelected chamber would only extend a provision which says new “Lords Spiritual” – 26 Church of England bishops with seats in the Lords – should be women if possible.
Criticising the stripping back of pledged Lords reforms, SNP depute Westminster leader Pete Wishart told The National: “Labour’s plans for the House of Lords are the usual bland and insipid platitudes that we have come to expect from them over the last 100 years.
“Where everybody will be glad to see unelected aristocrats finally getting shown the door, they were supposed to be only there temporarily when Tony Blair had a go at Lords reform a quarter of a century ago.
“But where is the new constitutional settlement? The [Gordon] Brown vision of a chamber of the nations and regions?
“Labour will only be taken seriously when they actually bring forward concrete proposals to reform the Lords into a democratic institution.
“But they have an early test before then and that is to forgo putting any more new Labour Lords into an already ridiculously bloated chamber. If they are to be seen as serious reformers they should forgo the temptation to fill it with their own cronies, donors and placemen.”
Scottish Green MSP Ross Greer also took aim at the Labour government, saying: “We’ve heard Labour talk about Lords reform for over 100 years, and once again they’ve managed to offer only the most minor and frankly inconsequential adjustment, something even more disappointing than the weak reforms they were previously suggesting.
“Hereditary peerages are an affront to democracy, but no more so than the House of Lords as a whole. Whether it’s the Lords Spiritual or the catalogue of party donors and failed politicians who get handed seats and expenses for life, none are elected by or accountable to voters.
“It’s clear as day that genuine democracy isn’t going to come from Westminster. Whether it’s Labour or the Tories in charge, the UK political class won’t deliver the change this country deserves and will instead continue packing the Lords with political cronies.”
