The Hereditary Peers Bill: A missed opportunity

Nothing sums up how broken our political system is quite like the House of Lords. The Prime Minister has unchecked power to appoint new peers, which too often has been abused to award peerages to party donors and political allies. As a result, the Lords has ballooned to over 830 members, making it the second-largest legislative chamber in the world, rivalled only by China’s National People's Congress.

Before becoming Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer rightly described the House of Lords as ‘undemocratic’ and ‘indefensible’. Yet in its first year, this government has shown little interest or urgency in reforming our broken second chamber. So far we’ve just had the Hereditary Peers Bill, whose purpose is to remove the remaining hereditary peers who, bizarrely, still vote on our laws in 2025. This brings an end to what was supposed to be a “temporary compromise” which allowed 90 hereditary peers to remain, and has now lasted 26 years!

Removal of the hereditaries is undoubtedly a welcome step forward. No one should inherit a lifelong seat in the chamber based on what their great-grandfather did or how much land he owned. But what’s frustrating is that this seems to be the full extent of the government’s ambition for House of Lords reform.

Is this really all this government can manage? Surely there has to be more ambition than tidying up the unfinished business from the last century, while doing nothing to bring Parliament into this century?

We’ve seen a half-hearted attempt from Labour to rein in the appointments system that has been abused by successive prime ministers. The public consultation on reforming the Lords, which was also promised in the Labour Party election manifesto, is nowhere to be seen. The public recognise that the government must go further. Recent polling from the Constitution Unit shows that just 3% of voters support the government's plan to remove the hereditary peers without also limiting the number of new appointments.[1]

Some peers attempted to push the government to go further when the Hereditary Peers Bill reached Report Stage. Lord Newby tabled an amendment to stop the Prime Minister from overruling the independent commission that vets new appointments. Lord Burns tabled an amendment to gradually reduce the size of the chamber to a maximum of 650. Even if these amendments had passed, they would have fallen short of the overhaul the House of Lords desperately needs.

Yet even these relatively minor changes were too radical for our political system which resists reform at every turn. Both of the amendments failed. They were doomed without the backing of the government.

Worse still, one amendment that did pass aims to weaken the reform even further. Lord Parkinson's amendment would abolish hereditary peer by-elections instead of removing the remaining hereditary peers, letting their numbers decrease over time. If accepted by the Commons, this could add another 30 years to what was already meant to be a "temporary compromise" in 1999.

To call the Hereditary Peers bill a missed opportunity is an understatement. Bills to reform the House of Lords are exceptionally rare - the last that made it as far as the Lords was 26 years ago. This bill may have been the only chance to bring meaningful change to the Lords for decades.

It’s now up to the government to break the pattern of lengthy waits between Lords reform bills. Waiting until their second term would be foolish. A second term for this government is far from guaranteed. Equally foolish would be for the Prime Minister to voluntarily appoint fewer peers instead of introducing legal limits. Sir Keir Starmer may choose to show restraint when appointing peers, but his successors may not. Say hello to hundreds of Reform UK peers! We’ll be catching up with China's National Congress before we know it, which at least has a size limit, even if it's 3,000!

The government still has time to act decisively, but they need to get started now. The Hereditary Peers Bill shows that these reforms take considerable time, and with this parliamentary session likely to be extended, there's no time to waste. They could introduce bolder legislation that caps the size of the chamber and reforms the appointments process. They could kickstart the public consultation and set us on a path to a more democratic second chamber.

Whatever they do, they’d better get on with it. Let's not wait another 26 years.

This blog was first posted to Left Foot Forward 18/07/25.

[1] https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2025/jun/public-overwhelmingly-support-house-lords-reform-going-beyond-government-plans