Sometimes change arrives with fanfare. Sometimes it arrives quietly, after years of argument, delay and unfinished business.

This week, the final hereditary peers lost their automatic right to sit and vote in the House of Lords, bringing an end to one of the most indefensible features of the UK constitution. Around 92 hereditary peers had remained in the chamber since the partial reforms of 1999, when hundreds more were removed, but a temporary compromise left a rump in place. That temporary measure lasted more than a quarter of a century.

Yet another compromise was required to finally finish the job. 15 Conservative hereditary peers and some crossbenchers will be waltzing back into the chamber with newly printed Life Peer passes.

A seat in Parliament should not be inherited

No one should have a role in making our laws because of who their parents were. In a modern democracy, the right to sit in parliament should come from the public. It should not be passed down like a family heirloom.

Yet for decades, the House of Lords retained exactly that logic. Some people could sit in Parliament not because voters chose them, nor because they were independently selected, but because they inherited a title, and were ‘elected’ by aristocrats with the same political party membership. That system belonged to another age.

The Electoral Reform Society has long campaigned for this moment

The Electoral Reform Society has argued for years that hereditary legislators have no place in a democratic system.

We said it when reform stalled. We said it when governments kicked the issue into the long grass. And we said it when defenders of the status quo insisted that an outdated compromise was good enough.

They were wrong.

Ending hereditary peers’ political power is not radical. It removes a glaring symbol of privilege from the heart of Parliament.

This is progress, but not the finish line

We should celebrate this step. But we should also be honest about what it does and does not solve.

Removing hereditary peers does not make the House of Lords democratic. It remains an unelected chamber dominated by political appointments, dodgy donors and pals of past prime ministers. Prime ministers still wield huge influence over who gets a seat, and the public still get no direct say over who scrutinises legislation in their name. We’ve seen that brought to life in the Mandelson scandal. One indefensible route into the Lords has closed. Others remain deeply flawed.

What comes next for the House of Lords

Now the obvious question follows: if hereditary peers are gone, what should replace the system that remains?

The Electoral Reform Society’s answer has long been clear. We need a second chamber that is smaller, more representative, and democratically legitimate. That means moving away from patronage and towards a system where the public have a meaningful voice.

There are different ways to design that chamber. But all of them would be better than clinging to an appointments system swollen by political favour.

Back in 1999, the removal of most hereditary peers was presented as the first stage of wider reform. Instead, the country was left with a half-finished settlement for decades.

This week closes that chapter.

It is welcome progress, and those who campaigned for years to make it happen should feel vindicated. But if we stop here, we risk repeating the same mistake: treating one reform as if it were the final destination. The government have promised a second stage to their programme of reform in the House of Lords, they can’t abandon that pledge.

Now let us build a House of Lords worthy of a modern democracy.

Add your name to our call on the government to finish the job

Add your name

We saw a big victory last night as the bill to remove the last hereditary peers from the House of Lords finally passed. The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill means the remaining 84 hereditary peers will no longer have the automatic right to sit in the upper chamber for life, influencing the laws we all live under, purely due to who their parents were.

It will seem absurd to many that politicians were allowed to have a job-for-life in Parliament due to an accident of birth. There is clearly no place for this in a modern democracy.

Until the end of this session of Parliament in early May, when the hereditaries will eventually leave, the UK will still be one of only two countries left in the world with hereditary legislators, with the other being the African nation of Lesotho.

This marks the most significant Lords reform for a generation

The passing of this bill marks the most significant reform to the House of Lords since 1999, when Tony Blair’s Labour government removed over 600 hereditary peers from the upper house. However, 92 were left in place as a temporary compromise – one which ended up lasting 27 years.

As part of that earlier legislation, it was also agreed that departing hereditaries would be replaced via ‘by-elections’, allowing members of aristocratic families to stand for seats that had fallen vacant and be elected by fellow hereditary peers already in the chamber.

These ‘by-elections’ often led to preposterous scenes in the upper chamber, such as elections with more candidates than voters. The by-elections were stopped in this Parliament, meaning 84 hereditaries remained as of this week after retirements and members passing away.

For years the ERS campaigned on this issue, highlighting the ludicrous spectacle of hereditary legislators self-selecting who among them got to sit in Parliament, as well as the totally undemocratic nature of the Lords. This consistent campaigning would not have been possible without the support of our members, so our thanks go to you. Today’s victory is the work of many hands.

This campaigning came to fruition when Labour pledged to end the principle of birthright legislating in its manifesto, describing the practice as ‘indefensible’.

The behaviour of peers over bill underlines case for further democratic reform of the Lords

Yet, despite having a clear democratic mandate, the bill came up against months of co-ordinated resistance and delaying tactics from the hereditary peers and members of the opposition, who threatened to hold up the government’s legislative agenda if hereditary peers were not allowed to remain in the chamber.

The episode has been a stark illustration of the backward nature of the Lords, where we saw unelected politicians abusing their position to protect their own interests and attempt to thwart a democratically-backed manifesto pledge.

The one fly in the ointment is that it is disappointing to see a number of hereditary peers returning to the Lords by the back door by being given life peerages as a ‘compromise’. This will look farcical to the public, who will wonder why unelected peers were able to force an elected government to water down its clear manifesto pledge to remove ‘indefensible’ hereditary peers from Parliament.

That said, the principle of hereditary legislating has now been vanquished, and ministers should be commended on the passing of this bill, which is a crucial first step towards reforming the Lords so it better reflects the country it serves. No part of Parliament should be a gated community from which the public are excluded.

It is clear ministers have the backing of the public in this, who find the idea of hereditary and unelected politicians influencing their lives unacceptable.

That is why progress must not stall here, and the government now needs to urgently move onto the next phase, as promised, and reform the Lords into a smaller, democratic chamber, with members chosen by and accountable to the people of this country.

Add your name – Let’s end the era of unelected influence.

It seems the legislative game of hide and seek around the bill to remove the hereditary peers from the Lords is over and it is now entering its endgame. We highlighted recently that things had gone mysteriously quiet since the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill was last seen in September. However, the Telegraph and BBC are now reporting the bill is due back in Parliament this week – but the price of it finally passing could be that unelected peers force ministers to water it down. The outlets are reporting that to break the impasse over the bill the government is preparing to offer the Conservative party more peerages so it can “bring back” a number of exiting hereditary peers.

If so, this poses a threat to the integrity of the government’s manifesto pledge to: “remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”. Labour was very clear before the election, saying it was “indefensible” to still have 92 hereditary peers in the Lords, all of whom are men and all of whom have a job for life shaping and influencing our laws simply because of who their parents were. Britain is only one of two countries, along with the African nation of Lesotho, that still have hereditary legislators.

Compromise threatens to make a mockery of a clear manifesto pledge

Yet, this reported compromise could see hereditaries handed life peerages, i.e. ones that end when the holder dies or retires, so they can stay in the chamber and continue to influence our laws. We have already seen a trickle of hereditaries start to return to the Lords by this back door, as in the last honours list one crossbench and two Lib Dem hereditary peers were given life peerages. The fact that hereditary peers are already finding a way to remain in the Lords via this ruse chips away at the government’s manifesto pledge. If a significant number are now allowed to remain in the Lords due to a grubby deal it will make a mockery of it.

To those who sit on the burgundy benches of the Lords, it may seem like a brilliant wheeze to pull a constitutional switcheroo to allow hereditaries to remain via life peerages, but to the public it will look farcical. When all is said and done, the people who the government said it would remove from the Lords will still be there, and the principle of hereditary legislating could be left operating de facto for decades to come.

If this happens, it will be no accident and comes after a concerted effort in the upper chamber to thwart a government manifesto pledge. Last year, Lord Nicholas True, the leader of the Tories in the Lords, explicitly told the government that if it went ahead with the removal of the hereditary peers, and didn’t let a ‘goodly number’ of them stay, peers would take “very aggressive procedural action” against its legislative agenda. We’ve since witnessed this on the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, which has made glacial legislative progress since it was introduced in 2024. There were 46 pages of amendments proposed to the bill at its report stage alone – all for a simple two-page bill.

This whole episode displays the power that unelected peers hold in our Parliament. They are able to eat up parliamentary time, which is extremely precious, as its availability literally determines what legislation a government can pass during its term. The delaying actions in the Lords now mean the government is facing a legislative logjam as it heads towards the end of this parliamentary session, leaving ministers scrambling to get their bills over the line.

Government has already created more new peers than the 92 hereditaries it plans to remove

Any deal to keep hereditary peers in the Lords will also compound the issue of its ever-growing size. The Lords currently has over 840 members making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world after China’s National People’s Congress, and that number doesn’t seem to be going down any time soon. This government is already in the absurd position of having created more peers, 96, than the 92 hereditary peers it said it would remove.

Fundamentally, though, this is about who has right to shape our laws. We would argue that those people should be chosen by the voters who live under those laws, no matter which part of Parliament we are talking about. Meanwhile, the principle of having people legislating in Parliament due to an accident of birth is as “indefensible” today as when the government rightly pledged to remove the hereditary peers before the election. Ministers need to stand firm and make sure they deliver on that clear promise to British public.

Add your name to our call or an elected House of Lords

It is not often we get to indulge in the mystery genre here at the ERS; however, this blog will delve into the curious incident of the missing Hereditary Peers bill. The bill, a straightforward piece of legislation to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords, was last spotted in September 2025. Then it was entering the last stages of the legislative process where the Lords and Commons consider amendments. Since then, nothing. The bill has stalled and seems stuck in suspended legislative animation.

It is hard to work out exactly what could be holding up the bill… There is hardly much of a disagreement over its aim: to end the principle of people legislating by accident of birth in Parliament. As it stands, it is only the UK and the African nation of Lesotho that still have hereditary legislators in the twenty-first century. In our case it is 92 (now 85, in practice, with retirements and lords passing away) peers, all men, who each have a job for life shaping and influencing our laws in Parliament due to who their parents were. In short, their fathers were peers with a permanent seat in parliament, and so they inherited that seat.

This practice clearly has no place in a modern democracy. The famous political pamphleteer Thomas Paine pointed out the absurdity of the practice over 200 years ago, arguing that having hereditary lawmakers makes as much sense as having hereditary mathematicians. The public, coincidentally, also find the idea unacceptable, as recent polling has shown.

A manifesto commitment to remove Hereditary peers

And the government agrees. At the last election, the Labour manifesto said that “Hereditary peers remain indefensible” and promised that “the next Labour government will therefore bring about an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords.” To ministers’ credit, the government announced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to remove the hereditaries in the first King’s Speech and then moved quickly to introduce it in Parliament.

That’s where the trouble began. Soon after the bill started its parliamentary journey, peers began aggressive delaying action. This was not a coincidence, it seems. The leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, Nicholas True, explicitly warned the government that if it went ahead with their manifesto pledge to remove the hereditary peers, it would face “very aggressive procedural action”, not just on the bill itself, but against the rest of its legislative agenda.

He seems to have been true to his word, as the bill has made achingly slow progress since. For example, there were 46 pages of amendments proposed to the bill at its report stage alone. This is for a simple bill that is two pages long, three if you count the contents page.

Unelected peers are trying to thwart a democratically-backed manifesto pledge

This whole episode is revealing about the state of our democracy and how it is working in practice. The sight of unelected peers using their constitutional position to disrupt and delay (with the explicit aim of thwarting altogether) a manifesto pledge of an elected government, exposes the backwards nature of our parliamentary system. The conduct of a section of peers over the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill only strengthens the case for structural democratic reform of the upper chamber. No part of Parliament should be an exclusive gated community for politicians who are completely unaccountable to the people of this country.

Meanwhile, the public, who are impacted by the work that happens in the Lords every day, are still waiting for the government to make good on this clear manifesto pledge. And the wait goes on…

Add your name to our call for an elected House of Lords

Join our campaign today

This week, MPs and peers from across the political spectrum announced plans to form a new all-party parliamentary group on ‘wholesale’ Lords reform. The trigger was the very real sight of unelected peers using obscure procedures to block legislation, and the continuing fallout from the Peter Mandelson affair.

With members from all the main parties, and both the house of Lord and the Commons, the group will be co-chaired by Labour’s Simon Opher MP and the Conservative’s Kit Malthouse MP. Kit Malthouse said “When arcane procedures can be used to defy the will not only of the elected chamber, but also the clearly expressed views of a large majority of the public, it is a crisis confronting our democracy that can’t be ignored.”

The House of Lords is a chamber without consequences

The Mandelson case exposes a problem that has long been hiding in plain sight. As we revealed last week, even when a peer resigns the House, they do not lose the trappings of their title. At present, the only way for a peer to lose their lofty stylings is an act of parliament.

Peers who bring parliament into disrepute can simply step back, while continuing to benefit from the status that comes with a title.

That is why so many cases end in quiet resignation, rather than meaningful consequence. No longer attending the House for parliamentary business, they have more time to focus on their own business interests. “Need a Lord on the board?” as Mandelson asked of Epstein in one email. Public office is treated less like a position of trust, and more like a private members club.

Powerful peers without a public mandate

It’s not just individual bad behaviour that has inspired the new group to form. The House of Lords is meant to revise and scrutinise legislation. It is not meant to veto the will of the Commons through procedural games. Yet, in recent months, several government bills have been facing extended scrutiny in the House of Lords. While careful examination of legislation is an important part of parliamentary work, some of these delays look to campaigners less like careful scrutiny and more like deliberate obstruction.

Peers have also been in the headlines in the past few months for their interventions and amendments to hugely significant legislation such as the government’s Employment Rights Bill and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

We don’t have a view on whether the House of Lords is doing the right thing in delaying these bills. But we firmly think that the public should be able to hold legislators accountable for their decisions. They have even been holding up their own reform in the two-page House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill.

The limits of voluntary standards

Rather than public accountability, we have a system based on trust and goodwill.

Appointments are scrutinised by a commission that exists by convention, not statute – and can simply be ignored. Behaviour is regulated by fellow peers who punish breaches by barring miscreants from the chamber, and the subsidised bars and restaurants. Resignations are voluntary. Sanctions are rare. This creates a system where the rules look firm, but feel optional.

When standards depend on people choosing to follow them, they stop being standards at all.

Lords should be held accountable by the British public

It should be no surprise that members of the House of Lords act as they please. At the moment, the House of Lords combines significant influence with weak accountability. Most members are appointed by the Prime Minister. They serve for life. And removing peers is harder than it should ever be.

If we want a second chamber that focuses on the job in hand, not the one they might get in future, they need to know that they will be held accountable by the public for their decisions. We need regular elections, so the public are in the driving seat. Anything less invites repeat crises.

So, it’s good to see the formation of this APPG, as the government need to realise how important their commitments to House of Lords reform are.

The question is no longer whether reform is needed. It is whether parliament is willing to move beyond half-measures and voluntary restraint. The fact that the House of Lords is dragging their heels on the simple and popular removal of the remaining hereditary peers, makes the case for why the government can’t allow them to win.

Add your name to our call for an elected House of Lords

Add your name

When peers make headlines for the wrong reasons, the same question inevitably arises: how do you actually remove someone from the House of Lords? The recent cases of Lord Mandelson and Baroness Mone have thrust this into the spotlight, with even the Prime Minister publicly stating he lacks the power to strip a peer of their title

The answer reveals a troubling truth about accountability in our democracy. While removal is technically possible, it’s extraordinarily difficult, and is completely out of the hands of the British public. Members of the Lords are not only unelected, but virtually immune from democratic accountability.

It’s almost impossible to remove a peerage

When an elected politician does something wrong, they can be held accountable by voters at the next election. But this fundamental democratic principle doesn’t apply in the House of Lords. As described in ‘Gadd’s Peerage Law’, once the crown has granted a peerage it is “very difficult to deprive the holder of it”.

The uncomfortable fact is that the only way a peerage can be removed is through an Act of Parliament. This means that removing someone from the Lords requires introducing and passing new legislation through both Houses of Parliament – a lengthy, complex process that hasn’t been used for over a century.

The last time this happened was after World War One, when the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 was passed to remove peerages from those who had assisted Britain’s enemies. Four people lost their peerages under this Act in 1919.

Membership is nearly as hard to remove

While removing the peerage itself requires an Act of Parliament, some laws have been introduced that allow peers to lose their membership of the House of Lords.

Under the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, members sentenced to more than one year in prison automatically cease to be members, though they keep their peerage title. The House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 allows the House to vote to expel members for Code of Conduct breaches, but only for conduct that occurred after June 2015. Peers who don’t attend for six months are also at risk of losing their membership of the House of Lords, unless they’ve obtained leave of absence. And since 2014, life peers can choose to resign their membership voluntarily.

And that’s exactly what happened in the recent controversy. When public pressure mounted, Lord Mandelson chose to stand down from the House of Lords. But that was a decision that he made entirely himself. Not by you, not by Parliament. Him alone.

This is what passes for accountability in the House of Lords – waiting and hoping that peers will do the right thing and remove themselves. There’s no mechanism for the public to demand their removal. No electoral consequence. Just the hope that enough embarrassment might convince someone to walk away voluntarily.

It’s time for an elected House of Lords, chosen by us

Recent controversies have led to calls to “modernise disciplinary procedures” and “strengthen circumstances in which disgraced members can be removed.” But these proposals still leave decisions in the hands of other unelected peers, not the public. Piecemeal changes won’t fix the fundamental democratic deficit. Only an elected second chamber will give the British people real power over those who make our laws.

If Lords had to stand for election, they would answer directly to the people. Voters could remove underperforming members at the ballot box – the most powerful form of democratic accountability. It’s time to bring democracy to both chambers of our Parliament.

You can demand real action

Sign our petition calling for an elected House of Lords. Add your voice to thousands of others demanding a democracy where every lawmaker answers to the people.

Together, we can end the era of unelected, unaccountable power.

Add your name here →

It’s beginning to look a lot like… a hold up?

In recent months, several government bills have been facing extended scrutiny in the House of Lords. While careful examination of legislation is an important part of parliamentary work, some of these delays looks less like careful scrutiny and more like deliberate obstruction.

Lord True, the Conservative leader in the Lords, warned ministers they would face “very aggressive procedural action” if they went ahead with removing the hereditary peers.

And as promised, peers submitted 46 pages of amendments at committee stage, for the two-page House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. A simple manifesto promise, passed by the House of Commons, has still not got out of the House of Lords.

But it’s not just in saving their own jobs where the peers have decided to spend time.

Peers have also been in the headlines in the past few weeks for their interventions and amendments to hugely significant legislation such as the government’s Employment Rights Bill and the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill.

A chamber with great power and no accountability

Peers hold genuine political power – shaping legislation, influencing government priorities, and controlling parliamentary timing – yet remain completely unaccountable to voters. This is not a minor quirk; it is a profound democratic deficit.

It’s not up to us to decide if the House of Lords is doing the right thing in delaying these bills. But we should be able to hold them to account for those choices.

These are not all technical fixes in line with the spirit of the legislation but often attempts to re-write or block the law. Gaining a seat in the Lords by being friends with the prime minister or being a major party donor does not confer a right to decide which laws should pass and which delayed.

The second chamber should be able to scrutinise legislation and ask the government to think again, but in the knowledge they will be held to account for their actions. Right now, there is no mechanism for the public to reward effective oversight or to respond if peers obstruct legislation.

Power with no accountability is rarely a good combination.

‘Tis the season for real democratic reform

When unelected politicians can slow, stretch and stall laws promised to voters – not because they are flawed, but because they threaten their own status – public trust erodes. The system starts to look closed, self-protecting and hostile to change.

The more the House of Lords leans into obstruction as a tactic, the clearer the case becomes for a second chamber that is modern, democratic, and accountable. An elected House of Lords would mean peers answer to voters, not to inherited privilege or party games. Obstruction would carry consequences, and scrutiny would serve the public interest rather than private interests.

All we want for Christmas is stronger democracy – but do you agree?

Add your name to our call for an elected second chamber

Keir Starmer himself not long ago described the wholly unelected and grossly bloated House of Lords as ‘indefensible’. Nothing has changed since then so it was deeply disappointing to see even more peers being stuffed into the upper chamber on Wednesday when the government announced the creation of 34 new peers. Number 10 has argued that this is necessary to boost Labour’s numbers and counter the Conservatives dominance in the Lords, which has led to them being able to slow down and frustrate the government’s agenda in the upper house.

Firstly, this highlights the utter absurdity of the current way the unelected Lords operates, where a completely unrestrained system means parties end up in an endless arms race of new peerages to try and assert dominance in the upper chamber. The result: the public watching dozens more peers being added to a chamber that already has 800 members and is already the second largest legislative chamber after China’s National People’s Congress.

Yet to add to this absurdity, this latest list means that the government has now already more than replaced the 92 hereditary peers it is in the process of removing. Prior to this Keir Starmer had created 62 new peers, adding on the 34 created this week that is 96 new peers since the start of the government. The hereditary peers haven’t even left the Lords yet as the bill to remove them is still going through its last ‘ping pong’ stages of the legislative process.

Hereditary peers returning as life peers

We have often applauded the government for ending the remaining hereditary peers, as people should not be making our laws because of who their parents were. But even this reform is now being undermined as in Wednesday’s list the Liberal Democrats nominated two hereditary peers, and a third cross-bench hereditary was also nominated, to stay in the chamber as life peers, ensuring the practice of hereditary legislating lives on in Parliament for years to come.

Adding more and more peers to the Lords with total abandon may make sense in some quarters of Westminster, but to the public this will seem a complete farce. Every new peer gets a taxpayer-funded job-for-life, influencing our laws with zero democratic accountability.

But this is not just about the ridiculous way people are appointed to the upper House of Parliament, there is a wider and far graver issue at stake here. That is that public trust in politics is at a record low, a fact that is deeply alarming for anyone who cares about the health of our democracy.

‘Business as usual’ at Westminster needs to end

It is hard to see how trust can be rebuilt while the public are routinely treated to the squalid spectacle of prime ministers ladling out jobs-for-life in parliament to friends, allies and donors. This grubby ‘business as usual’ Westminster approach to the Lords needs to be broken.

Back in 2022 when Keir Starmer described the House of Lords as ‘indefensible’, he also proposed a solution: make it an elected chamber that better represents all four corners of this country. We could not agree more. It is now time for the Prime Minister to make good on his pledge and reform the upper House into a smaller democratic chamber that is accountable to the British people.

Enough is enough, we need to put a complete halt to new peers until the house has been properly reformed.

Add your name today

A common argument from defenders of the unelected Lords is that ministers should dedicate the entirety of their time to bread and butter policies that more immediately impact voters. The implicit basis here is that we should wait until all the policy and legislative challenges the country faces are solved before we can even contemplate any political reform, in which case we’d still be waiting on the Great Reform Act and universal suffrage. 

This ‘mañana’ approach mainly reveals that opponents of reforming the Lords struggle to argue in favour of our undemocratic upper chamber, and therefore resort to delaying tactics instead.

Yet, the substance of this argument also doesn’t make much sense, as everything that voters care about from schools to hospitals, their employment rights and even the manner in which they could die are materially impacted by the work that happens in the Lords.  

Recent events have been a clear illustration of this. Peers have been in the headlines in the past few weeks for their interventions and amendments to hugely significant legislation such as the government’s workers’ rights bill and the assisted dying bill. In changing those bills, many peers are merely doing what they were put into the Lords to do – refine and amend legislation that comes from the Commons.

However, their interventions into such sensitive and heated areas often reopen the debate over what the basis is for unelected peers making important decisions that impact every person in the country. We saw this debate reach a particularly bitter peak during the Brexit years.  

The heart of this problem goes back to the Lords’ completely undemocratic nature. 

“Very aggressive procedural action”

The Prime Minister himself has described the wholly undemocratic Lords as ‘indefensible’ and pledged to turn it into an elected chamber. The government has begun the work of reform and currently has a bill going through Parliament to remove the remaining hereditary peers. But even this long overdue reform has not been straightforward, as it has become bogged down in the Lords itself.

For example, the two-page bill received 46 pages of amendments just at report stage, as the Lords seems particularly keen on intervening on legislation that directly impact them. 

Senior peers have been explicit that this is a purposeful tactic to make life painful for the government. Lord True, the Conservative leader in the Lords, warned ministers they would face “very aggressive procedural action” if they went ahead with removing the hereditaries.

This is not an idle threat either, as parliamentary time is precious and peers eating it up causes real issues for the government getting its legislative agenda through. In short, the problem with Lords reform is that the Lords is both poacher and gamekeeper on the issue. 

Removing hereditary peers must only be the first step in wider reforms 

As the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill enters its last stages in Parliament, the question is now what comes next? Removing the absurdity of the hereditary peers was a long overdue and necessary step, but their exit won’t solve the core issue around an undemocratic Lords.

In 2022, Keir Starmer was explicit in his ambition to make the lords elected and at the same time former Prime Minister Gordon Brown laid out plans for a smaller, directly elected chamber that better represents the nations and regions of the UK. Since the election, media reports suggest the focus is on much less ambitious measures aimed at tackling the Lords’ enormous size, such as an enforced retirement age and participation requirement. 

One of the few things that almost everyone agrees on is that the current Lords needs reforming, and it is good to see the government make a start on the worst excesses. Yet, removing the hereditaries must be only the first step to wider reform, as until the Lords is made accountable to the country it legislates for questions about its legitimacy will persist. 

Add your name to our call for a second chamber with the legitimacy to act

Add your name today

The absurdity of how the House of Lords currently operates has been thrown up in technicolour over the last few days. Several issues have been garnering media attention as the end of recess approaches and efforts to reform the upper chamber get back underway.

Most prominent has been the hereditaries as they gear up for a last stand over the bill to remove them, as it heads to the “ping pong” process between the Commons and Lords. Media reporting suggests the hereditaries are digging in, in the hope of being given life peerages so they can remain in the Lords.

Over the weekend, hereditary peer Lord Strathclyde was quoted in the FT complaining the government is removing them while offering “nothing in return” and warned that there could be delaying tactics used on the rest of the government’s agenda by Conservative colleagues as a result. He added: “inevitably, there will be repercussions. They (the government) are storing up huge problems for themselves.”

This displays the upside-down nature of our democracy, where unelected politics are attempting to delay and thwart a bill that is clearly democratically backed by a manifesto pledge. Even the leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, Lord True, has admitted that principle of people being given seats in Parliament due to birth-right has been vanquished. Yet supporters of the hereditary peers are arguing that the existing hereditaries should be gifted life peerages as a quid pro quo, this would mean the UK would still have active hereditary legislators for decades to come.

Unrestrained and undemocratic

Last week another row also detonated over the Lords when Nigel Farage demanded the right to nominate Reform peers, pointing out that the Greens, who have the same number of MPs as Reform (four) have two peers and the DUP, which has five MPs, has six peers. The intervention threw a spotlight onto the arbitrary way peerages are created and dished out, with the Prime Minister effectively able to decide on a whim who gets a job-for-life in Parliament.

This row over the next inevitable list of new peerages also spotlighted the other huge absurdity of the upper chamber, it’s sheer bloated size. At 830 members, the Lords is the second largest legislative chamber in the world after China’s National People’s Congress. So understandably this week Labour’s leader in the Lords, Baroness Smith, outlined in a letter to the Telegraph government plans to bring those numbers more in line with the 650-member Commons by enforcing mandatory retirement for peers over 80 and sacking those who do not attend or speak enough in the chamber. These measures are envisioned as part of the second tranche of reform of the Lords, following the removal of the hereditaries.

What is immediately evident is that these reforms in isolation would be woefully inadequate sticking-plaster solutions compared to the scale of the problems with the Lords. Not only is it farcically large, but it is utterly undemocratic and completely fenced off from the British public. Merely trimming off a few members here and there would be like giving a haircut to a patient that needs major surgery.

At the heart of all these issues is a central question: Who decides who sits in our Parliament? We would argue that those best qualified are not a prime minister, or political parties but the British people. Yet, the public are the one element conspicuously absent in all the political debate and media coverage over Lords reform, which is strange as what happens in the Lords impacts every aspect of the public’s life.

Sticking-plaster solutions are not enough

In 2022, Keir Starmer was clear when he lambasted the Lords as ‘indefensible’ and pledged to turn it into an elected chamber. The way the Lords operates today is as indefensible now as it was when the Labour leader made those comments. Removing the hereditaries and ending birth-right legislating is a long overdue and much-needed reform, and efforts to reduce the size of the Lords are understandable considering its ridiculously bloated membership.

But ultimately, the fundamental problem at the heart of all this is the unrestrained and undemocratic way peers are created. Until the government addresses the patronage fire-hose that means PMs and party leaders can stuff unlimited peers into the Lords, the benches of the upper chamber will continue to strain under the weight of an ever-ballooning membership.

The real answer is the one Keir Starmer originally proposed: turn the Lords into a smaller democratic chamber with a set number of members. As the politicians who sit in Parliament making our laws should be democratically elected, not self-selected.

Add your name to the quarter of a million people who are calling for an elected second chamber

Add your name today