Bad news for fans of unelected legislatures: Labour is considering abolishing hereditary peers. According to the Sunday Times, Keir Starmer is drawing up plans that could see the immediate removal of hereditary peers if the party is elected, as part of a package of “interim” reforms to modernise and reduce the size of the House of Lords.
Other moves being explored include introducing a mandatory retirement age or stopping hereditary peer byelections (so the current peers can’t be replaced after they leave).
For the section of the British press who feel terror at the prospect of a Labour government, discussions of Lords “reform” is essentially one of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Rather than fire and brimstone, the warning signs are questioning hereditary peers, ending private school tax breaks, decent public services and tackling child poverty (well, maybe not that last one quite yet).
Despite decades of debate, the Labour party’s previous attempts to quash the Lords have never been fully successful. In 1999, Tony Blair’s government managed to end the 700-year-old right for all peers to sit and vote. This got the number of hereditary peers down from 750 but political pressure meant 92 remained, like a particularly stubborn mildew.
And yet it feels like the tide may be turning. Last week, Boris Johnson’s former aides, Charlotte Owen and Ross Kempsell, were sworn in as life peers to widespread criticism, even among their own party. Few moments highlight the need for Lords reform better than the sight of people with barely a decade of work experience making laws for the next 60 years, and for no other reason than it was the whim of a man who nicknamed himself “Big Dog”.
If you need a reminder of just what extensive qualifications these two bring to the (unelected) table, let us recap. Now just 30 and the chamber’s youngest peer, Owen made the jump from being a parliamentary intern to a baroness in the space of just six years. How can you make such strides in your own career, you ask?
Let us consult the Times and the explanation it received from one staffer. “When Boris was facing the vote of no confidence [Owen] was the person behind the idea to send out letters to every MP … There were people coming into the building saying, ‘How can we help?’ and she’d say things like, ‘We need some help stuffing letters’.” Inspirational.
Kempsell, meanwhile, is a City broker turned journalist for the hyperpartisan Guido Fawkes website and then the political editor of TalkRadio (granted, “journalist” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there). In his brief career, Kempsell is best known for his interview with his future boss Johnson in which he discovered the then prime minister’s hobby was painting old crates to look like buses. One can only hope Kempsell brings that sort of laser focus to his scrutiny of primary legislation.
It is laughable, clearly – and not just in the sense that you can virtually hear them laughing at us. And yet it’s notable that Labour’s plan to get rid of hereditary peers would still leave Owen and Kempsell in a job (for life). One that pays an attendance rate of £342 a day.
Labour is said to be consulting on how to go about abolishing the Lords altogether and replacing it with a fully elected second chamber. Starmer would do well to hold his nerve.
Simply removing the remaining hereditary peers wouldn’t change the habit of prime ministers stuffing the chamber with cronies, sons of KGB agents and Andrew Lloyd Webber. It wouldn’t significantly reduce the bloated chamber and cost to the public. Even after Blair’s reforms, there are still 777 members of the House of Lords who are eligible to vote – enough to fill eight doubledecker buses.
Nor would it make the chamber more representative of the public. At an average age of 71, most of the peers could describe the advent of colour television, but are unlikely to be up on what it’s like to pay half your income in rent. It wouldn’t even solve the problem of organised religion’s reach in politics. Currently, 26 Church of England bishops get an automatic right to sit in the Lords. The only other country in the world where representatives of the state religion automatically get a seat in the legislature is Iran.
Some defend the Lords by pointing to the fact that peers often temper a Conservative government – as seen this month with their attempts to amend the moral wasteland that is the migration bill. But if we are relying on an unelected, unaccountable body to protect our rights, we are surely placing them on fragile ground.
It says much about this country’s toxic relationship with class and deference that those with unearned privilege can – quite literally – lord it over the rest of us and expect no pushback. In the 21st century, aides and aristocrats have no place governing without consent. If they wish to rule, they can stand for election just like any other citizen. Even Boris Johnson managed that.
• This article was amended on 1 August 2023. The average age of peers in the House of Lords is 71, not 77 as an earlier version said.
Frances Ryan is a Guardian columnist
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