The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-25 was introduced in the House of Commons on 5 September 2024.
It is scheduled to be debated on second reading on 15 October 2024.
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UPDATE (5 November 2024) The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-25 received a second reading in the House of Commons on 15 October 2024. The committee stage (committee of the whole House) and remaining stages in the Commons are scheduled to be taken on 12 November 2024. Proposed amendments to the bill have been tabled for committee stage. The briefing paper is unchanged from the paper published on 10 October 2024. |
What would the bill do?
The bill would remove “the remaining connection between the hereditary peerage and membership of the House of Lords”. It would remove all remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords and abolish the House of Lords’ jurisdiction in relation to claims to hereditary peerages.
Section 1 of the House of Lords Act 1999 states that “No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage”. However, as a result of a compromise during the passage of that legislation, up to 92 excepted hereditary peers were allowed to remain in the House of Lords (section 2 of the 1999 act). This was intended to be temporary, pending further reform of the House of Lords.
At present there are 88 hereditary peers eligible to sit in the House of Lords. They sit alongside 692 life peers and 25 bishops (on 13 September 2024).
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-25 removes section 2 from the 1999 act.
Clause 4(3) of the bill specifies that “This Act comes into force at the end of the Session of Parliament in which this Act is passed”. Excepted hereditary peers would continue to sit in the House of Lords until the end of the parliamentary session in which the bill received Royal Assent.
The bill relates to the composition of the House of Lords and therefore extends and applies to the whole of the United Kingdom.
What further reform has the government proposed?
In its manifesto for the 2024 general election (PDF), the Labour Party set out its proposals for House of Lords reform. It identified the removal of hereditary peers as an “immediate modernisation”.
In the debate on the King’s Speech in the House of Lords on 23 July 2024, Lord Khan of Burnley, a Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, confirmed that the removal of hereditary peers was a “first step”.
He confirmed that the government was committed to other reforms:
- changes to appointments process, to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber
- a mandatory retirement age
- “a long-term commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”
- a participation requirement
Lord Khan said the government would “conduct engagement and consult on proposals for an alternative second Chamber”.
Has there been any reform of the House of Lords since 1999?
Since the removal of all but 92 hereditary peers from the House of Lords in the House of Lords Act 1999, there have been plans for further reform. In 2003 and 2007 there were inconclusive votes on the proposed composition of a reformed second chamber; and in 2012 the House of Lords Reform Bill received second reading but did not progress further.
Two relatively small reforms were implemented as a result of backbench bills that originated in the House of Lords. Members of the House of Lords can retire (House of Lords Reform Act 2014) and can be expelled and suspended beyond the end of a Parliament (House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015).
Backbench bills have been introduced in the House of Lords to end the by-elections that fill vacancies among hereditary peers, until eventually no hereditary peers would be sitting in the Lords; and to put the House of Lords Appointments Commission on a statutory footing.
In December 2022, the Labour Party published A New Britain: Renewing our Democracy and Rebuilding our Economy. The report was prepared by the Commission on the UK’s Future, led by former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
It recommended replacing the House of Lords as a second chamber with an Assembly of the Nations and Regions, with around 200 members. The new second chamber would have “a new role of safeguarding the UK constitution”, in a way that sustained the primacy of the House of Commons.
The report said the new second chamber “must have electoral legitimacy”. It would be smaller than the House of Commons, elected on a different electoral cycle. Its precise composition and the method of election would be consulted on.
In a Hansard Society lecture on 7 December 2022, the Lord Speaker, Lord McFall of Alcluith, said it was not for him to put forward specific proposals for reform of the House. Rather, he suggested “a framework that will help us to have a constructive and purposeful debate about the future of the House”.
In interviews later in December, the Commons Speaker, Sir Lindsay Hoyle commented on the Labour Party’s proposals. The BBC reported the Speaker “expressed his opposition to Labour's plan to replace the House of Lords with an elected chamber” and the plan “would undermine the authority of the House of Commons”.