On Wednesday, the UK government revealed plans to eliminate 92 hereditary seats in the House of Lords, reviving a reform initiative started by Tony Blair’s Labour government in the 1990s.
In the first parliamentary session following Keir Starmer’s general election victory for Labour, King Charles III announced that removing the peers’ right to sit and vote in the Lords was part of efforts to modernize Britain’s constitution.
Labour’s landslide win on July 4th brought them back to power for the first time since 2010, allowing them to fulfill their manifesto promises, including the much-discussed Lords reforms.
The unelected upper chamber of Parliament has long faced calls for reform to make it more representative and modern. A columnist once famously described it as “a chamber festering with grotesques and has-beens.”
However, the full scope of Labour’s plans remains uncertain. The government described the removal of hereditary peers as a “first step in wider reform.”
“The continued presence of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is outdated and indefensible,” the government stated in briefing notes accompanying the King’s Speech.
Removing Hereditary Seats
With around 800 members, the House of Lords is significantly larger than any similar legislative body in a democracy. Most of its members, averaging 71 years old, are appointed for life. They include former MPs, notable public- or private-sector figures, and Church of England clerics.
The chamber’s primary role is to scrutinize the government. While it cannot override legislation from the elected House of Commons, it can amend and delay bills and introduce new laws. This sometimes puts the Lords in the political spotlight, such as when it delayed the previous Conservative government’s controversial Rwanda deportation plan, which was quickly abandoned by the new government.
The new legislation revisits the House of Lords reform agenda initiated by Blair’s government in the late 1990s. Blair’s government had aimed to abolish all hereditary seats, but a temporary compromise left 92 seats intact.
“25 years later, they form part of the status quo more by accident than by design,” noted Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s government.
“No other modern democracies allow individuals to sit and vote in their legislature by right of birth,” it added.
Overdue and Essential
The government highlighted that the reforms are partly driven by the gender imbalance among hereditary peers, who are currently all male due to peerages being passed down the male line. Meanwhile, 36 percent of the other members of the House of Lords are female.
Starmer’s administration also argued that hereditary peers are too politically static for a democracy. Of the 92 hereditary seats, 42 are held by Conservatives, 28 by crossbenchers, three by the Liberal Democrats, and just two by Labour. Additionally, 15 are elected by the entire chamber from the pool of hereditary peers in the UK.
Reformers also pointed out that hereditary peers do not undergo propriety checks, unlike life peers who are vetted by the House of Lords Appointment Committee.
“In the 21st century, there should not be almost 100 places reserved for individuals who were born into certain families, nor should there be seats effectively reserved only for men,” the government argued. “Reform is now long overdue and essential.”
