THE UK Government will begin the process of removing hereditary peers from the House of Lords, as it introduces legislation to reform the upper chamber.
The bill, set to be introduced on Thursday, will look at abolishing the 92 seats reserved for hereditary peers, and is expected to be followed by the imposition of a retirement age of 80 on members of the Lords.
Currently, once hereditary peers are appointed they are entitled to attend the House of Lords until they die. Like all peers, the hereditary lords can claim a daily £342 attendance allowance.
Abolishing hereditary peers from the House of Lords was one of Labour’s manifesto commitments, with Keir Starmer, then leader of the opposition, branding the presence of hereditary peers “undemocratic”.
The manifesto commitment is watered down from Starmer’s previous pledge to abolish the Lords altogether during his 2020 leadership campaign.
However, as we previously reported, it is understood that the hereditary peers would still be allowed to enjoy access to Parliament’s bars and subsidised restaurants, despite no longer holding a seat in the Lords.
Officials have said that reform is “long overdue and essential”, whilst Conservative critics have called the move a “vendetta” and “political vandalism”.
Nick Thomas-Symonds (below), minister for the constitution, said the legislation was a “landmark reform to our constitution”.
He said: “The hereditary principle in law-making has lasted for too long and is out of step with modern Britain.
“The second chamber plays a vital role in our constitution and people should not be voting on our laws in Parliament by an accident of birth.
“This bill shows this Government’s commitment to delivering on our manifesto and is an important part of putting politics in the service of working people.”
The last Labour government removed most hereditary peers from the Lords in 1999, but allowed 92 to remain in what was initially intended to be a short-term compromise to get the legislation through.
About half of those still in the chamber are Conservatives, with the rest mainly independent Crossbenchers and a small number of Labour and Liberal Democrat peers.
There are no SNP peers because of a long-standing party policy of opposing the House of Lords as “an affront to democracy”.
SNP Westminster leader Stephen Flynn (below) previously said no SNP members or MPs would be entering the House of Lords “on my watch”.
“The House of Lords is a corrupt institution, one which is anarchic, one which rewards people based upon, in some instances, simply who they were born to,” he said.
Current hereditary peers in the House of Lords include Lord Attlee, grandson of the Labour prime minister Clement Attlee; the Duke of Wellington, whose great-great-great-grandfather defeated Napoleon at Waterloo in 1815; and Viscount Stansgate, whose father Tony Benn renounced his peerage to sit in the Commons, where he became a prominent figure on the left of the Labour Party.
The total also includes two peers, the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain, who are permitted to remain members of the Lords by virtue of those offices.
The bill introduced on Thursday is expected to maintain the exemptions for the Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain because of the constitutional duties they perform on state occasions.
Baroness Angela Smith, the leader of the House of Lords, said: “While recognising the valuable contributions many hereditary peers have made to Parliament, it is right that this reform is being brought forward now, completing work we began 25 years ago.
“Removing the hereditary principle from the Lords will deliver on a specific manifesto commitment. It will also help deliver on our commitment to reduce the size of the second chamber, as we bring forward further reforms.”
Labour remains formally committed to abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with an elected chamber, but the party’s 2024 manifesto promised only to “consult on proposals”.
