The UK’s Upper House, the House of Lords, could be getting a shake-up.
The Labour Government has introduced a bill that, if passed, would get rid of “hereditary peers”. This refers to people who’ve inherited seats in the House of Lords attached to their aristocratic titles (e.g. dukes or earls).
Labour MP Peter Swallow called the peerage a “bygone relic of a less democratic age”.
The bill still needs to go through a parliamentary debate and pass the House of Lords itself.
House of Lords
The UK’s Parliamentary system has two chambers.
Theis the Lower House. Its 650 members are elected to represent geographic areas. A Government is formed by securing a majority of MPs in the Commons at a general election.
The, the Upper House, is unelected. There is no limit on how many members can have a seat in the Lords – currently, there are 829 – making it the biggest legislative chamber in the democratic world.
The House of Lords developed in the 11th Century as a way for those with official titles and land (e.g. dukes), and religious figures, to advise English kings.
Members of the House of Lords are called peers. Individual male members are generally given the title ‘Lord’, and women are typically called ‘Baroness’.
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Today, most of the peers are appointed on the advice of the Prime Minister, while the 89 remaining hereditary peers have inherited titles from their families.
All peers hold their seats for life. They aren’t paid a salary but can claim expenses.
Reforms
Labour went to the July generalpromising to remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords and impose a mandatory retirement age of 80 for all of its members.
It follows the work of a previous Labour Government, which in 1999 significantly cut down the number of hereditary peers.
The Government has now introduced a bill to remove hereditary peers, but not retirement ages. The bill is subject to a parliamentary debate and will also need to pass the House of Lords.
Debate
Government Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said it was “indefensible” to have seats in Parliament “allocated by an accident of birth”.
The Scottish National Party (SNP) pushed the Government to abolish the Lords altogether. SNP MP Pete Wishart described it as a “red-leather-upholstered, gold-plated Narnia”.
Several conservative MPs have spoken against the change. Deputy Opposition Leader Oliver Dowden argued Labour was “obsessed with change for change’s sake”, arguing the reforms to the Lords wouldn’t achieve much.
