A bill based on Labour’s manifesto commitment to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords has already passed through the House of Commons, and is now being considered in the Lords itself. In this post, the first in a two-part series, Constitution Unit Director Meg Russell reviews the background to the bill, and progress up to the end of its Lords committee stage. In a second post, she will argue that the ability to amend the bill at its coming report stage offers a rare opportunity to make progress on other small and widely supported Lords reforms – and that this should be seized.

The House of Lords is currently debating a government bill on its own reform, to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the chamber. To have reached this point is highly unusual. Debate about Lords reform has been near-constant for decades, but no other government bill on the subject has reached the chamber in the past 26 years. That makes this a rare opportunity to achieve long-awaited reform of the second chamber – certainly on the hereditary peers, but ideally also going further.

In this first post of two I outline the steps on the bill so far, up to and including its recently completed House of Lords committee stage. In a follow-up post I will look forward to the coming report stage, when amendments may be made, and argue that parliamentarians should seize this opportunity to achieve other long overdue Lords reform. If they don’t, past experience suggests that no further reform is likely to happen for another generation, or even longer.

Background to the bill, and debates on Lords reform

The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill was introduced into the House of Commons in September. It seeks to implement Labour’s manifesto commitment to remove the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit in the chamber. Back in 1997, Tony Blair’s Labour government was elected on a manifesto pledge to remove all the hereditary peers – who then made up a majority in the Lords. But although around 650 departed in 1999, a compromise with the Conservatives resulted in 92 being retained. Since then, this number has been regularly refreshed through a peculiar system of byelections. Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledge is thus seen as ‘unfinished business’ from 26 years ago.

Since 1999, and indeed previously, further House of Lords reform has endlessly been debated. The Labour government established a Royal Commission, and published several white papers, but – despite originally promising a two-stage process – never produced a second-stage bill. The Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition did introduce a bill, proposing an 80% elected second chamber; but this died in the House of Commons. Such failure was nothing new, as both main parties have often been split on Lords reform. In 1968 Harold Wilson’s Labour government had similarly introduced a bill that never completed its Commons stages. Prior to 1999 the last government reform bill to reach the Lords had thus been 36 years previously – a very small reform by Harold Macmillan’s government in 1963. In other words, successful government bills on Lords reform come around only about every 30 years.

Debate often focuses on the desirability of large-scale Lords reform. Most recently, a commission chaired by Gordon Brown proposed replacing the chamber with an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. There is some nod to this in Labour’s 2024 manifesto, but only as a longer-term prospect for consultation. Instead, the manifesto effectively proposed a two-stage reform, starting with other smaller changes – many of them also long debated – which might be achieved more quickly. The most widely noted problem with the current chamber, explored by a cross-party committee set up by the Lord Speaker in 2016, is that uncontrolled prime ministerial appointments have led its size to spiral upwards, from just over 650 members in 1999 to well over 800 today. Labour’s manifesto commented that the chamber has ‘become much too big’, and that changes were needed to ‘reform the appointments process to ensure the quality of new appointments’. It also proposed to introduce a retirement age of 80, and toughen up requirements both on peers’ participation and the removal of ‘disgraced members’. These commitments sat alongside the pledge to remove the ‘indefensible’ hereditary peers.

Debate on the bill so far

The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill deals only with the last of these commitments. Its debate in the House of Commons was brief, with a second reading on 15 October, and both its committee stage and third reading on 12 November. There was no dissent on the Labour side, and it had support from the Liberal Democrats and minor parties. At the committee stage, the scope of the bill was judged to be quite wide, meaning that amendments could be debated on all aspects of the composition of the House of Lords. There was discussion, for example, on proposals to remove the 26 Church of England bishops from membership, or move towards an elected second chamber. However, all amendments were either withdrawn or easily defeated, and the bill passed third reading by 435 votes to 73.

In the House of Lords itself, matters became far more interesting. Debate is not time-limited as it is in the Commons, and the subject of the bill is clearly of huge interest and importance to peers. Indeed, most of the recent pressure for incremental change to the Lords has come from the chamber itself. In addition, the government has no majority in the Lords. The wide scope for debate has allowed discussion to encompass not only the rights and wrongs of removing the hereditary peers, but all other aspects of the chamber’s future composition, and potential for change in these areas is real. In a freestanding debate on Lords reform when the bill was still in the Commons, and at the subsequent second reading debate, peers expressed enthusiasm for pushing the government beyond the narrow confines of the bill, including on its other manifesto commitments.

The bill spent five days at its committee stage on the floor of the House of Lords: on 3, 10, 12 and 25 March, and 1 April, and is now awaiting its report stage. Notwithstanding the brevity of the bill – five clauses in total, across less than two pages – by the first day of committee 121 amendments had been proposed, and others followed. These amendments’ topics and sponsors are briefly analysed below.

The party politics of the bill

Before turning to this, the basic party politics of the bill are important. Removal of the hereditary peers is a firm commitment of Labour, strongly supported by other parties such as the Liberal Democrats and Greens. But, notwithstanding minimal public support for retaining hereditary peers, the Conservatives oppose the bill. Their former leader in the House of Lords, Lord (Tom) Strathclyde described it as a ‘thoroughly nasty little Bill’, while current Conservative leader Lord (Nick) True accused the government of ‘purging Parliament of 88 of its most effective Members’ (since four hereditary seats were vacant), warning that the bill would be ‘fiercely contested’.

There are various points of contention here. The Conservatives were long the dominant party in the previous largely hereditary House of Lords, and are attached to its traditions. Labour stands accused of breaking an agreement with the party in 1999 that the 92 hereditary peers would remain until the next (never-delivered) stage of reform. Crucially, around 50 of the hereditary seats are in effect reserved for Conservatives, while only a handful go to Labour or the Liberal Democrats, with the others being independent Crossbenchers. In partisan terms, Labour therefore stands to gain from the reform, while the Conservatives stand to lose. In addition, there is natural sympathy for the individuals concerned, some of whom have given long and valuable service to the chamber.

This being a manifesto bill, the established ‘Salisbury convention’ demands that it should not be blocked by the House of Lords. The plan to remove the hereditary peers was clearly put before the public. Even without this constraint, while the Conservatives remain the largest party in the House of Lords, building a majority to retain the hereditary peers is near-impossible, given the Liberal Democrats’ position. This seems to have led the party’s leadership in the Lords to turn instead to procedural tactics, such as encouragement of large numbers of amendments and lack of cooperation over their ‘grouping’ for debate – which has led to very lengthy proceedings not just on this bill but also other bills. This in turn has angered the government and been looked on with dismay by many, not only on the Labour side.

Leader of the House of Lords Baroness (Angela) Smith of Basildon has been careful in her words, speaking of ‘procedural shenanigans‘, but denying having accused the Conservatives of filibustering. In contrast, former Labour Chief Whip Lord (Bruce) Grocott is one who has openly expressed frustrations, leading to him being slapped down by senior Conservatives. This fractious atmosphere has had unhelpful effects, which will be returned to in my second post.

Amendments discussed at Lords committee stage

The main focus of that post will be the key topics on which progress might be made at report stage. This section provides some initial pointers, through a breakdown of topics and sponsors of committee stage amendments. However, for reasons just touched upon, and because no votes were held, these give limited indication of the genuine strength of support inside the Lords for change. On all bills, the usual practice in the Lords is not to vote on amendments at committee stage, but to use this to debate the key questions, and gauge the mood. There is no selection of amendments in the Lords, and all are debated. More serious attempts at change are generally held back for the subsequent report stage.

Roughly 35 of the committee stage amendments related to the central question in the bill – the future of the hereditary peers. All but four were tabled by Conservatives. The opposition frontbench proposed that, rather than removing the hereditary peers, the byelections should end so that departing members would in future not be replaced. This is exactly the proposal pursued over many years in repeated private member’s bills by Labour peer Lord (Bruce) Grocott, which (as Baroness Smith firmly pointed out) was never supported by the Conservative government. An alternative Conservative frontbench proposal was for all departing hereditary peers to be offered life peerages, which would have a similar effect. Backbench Conservative amendments on the hereditary peers included that their departure should be delayed to the end of the current parliament, or made conditional on publication of the government’s future plans, or on a constitutional conference or a referendum. The only substantive Labour amendment on the bill (by former Deputy Leader in the chamber, Baroness [Dianne] Hayter), would instead have speeded up the hereditaries’ departure to the day on which the bill is passed, rather the end of the current session.

Amendments proposed on other topics were also very heavily skewed to the Conservatives, with just a handful from Crossbenchers or members of other parties. Other Conservative amendments included those seeking to guarantee seats for judicial peers, other officeholders or members of professional bodies; bar seats for former MPs or special advisers; or allow temporary seats for ministers. A handful sought to remove the bishops, reduce their number, or extend seats to other faith groups. Many of these will have been seen as at best ‘probing’ amendments, and at worst as means to further delay proceedings.

Some other amendments deliberately focused on proposals made in Labour’s manifesto. Around 18 (again mostly from Conservative backbenchers) dealt with requirements for peers’ attendance/participation; six (likewise) proposed different options for a retirement age, and 12 related to the House of Lords Appointments Commission (all but one proposing that it should be strengthened). The Liberal Democrat frontbench made a key suggestion on this topic, that prime ministers should be barred from appointing individuals who had failed HOLAC’s propriety test (as Boris Johnson did on one occasion). Other amendments sought to make HOLAC statutory, widen its scope to considering suitability (not just propriety), or guarantee a certain number of Crossbench appointments. Some of these proposals would find considerable support outside the Lords, including from expert groups.

Overall, fewer than 20 amendments had a lead sponsor who was anything other than Conservative. Unsurprisingly, the Liberal Democrat frontbench, and Plaid Cymru member Baroness (Carmen) Smith of Llanfaes, sought to guarantee a subsequent step towards an elected chamber. Particularly striking were two amendments respectively from former Lord Speaker Lord (Norman) Fowler, and chair of the Committee on the Size of the House that he established, Lord (Terry) Burns (both Crossbench). Both of these sought to place limits upon the size of the House of Lords – a topic which, as indicated above, has received much focus in recent years.

Notably Conservatives, as with amendments, dominated the speeches at committee stage. At least 25 members of the party spoke on most days, in contrast usually to just one or two Labour backbenchers and a handful of others. Labour members in particular kept deliberately silent, in order not to further slow the committee stage down.

What happens next?

The bill’s Lords committee stage is now complete, and it awaits its report stage. The dynamics so far make it difficult to sense the true levels of support for different proposals, and indeed if anything have frustrated matters. Many Labour members and others are clearly exasperated with the slow progress on this simple bill, which creates a difficult environment for compromise. Conservative tactics of delay, and frontbench focus on the unwinnable question of hereditary peers, appear counterproductive. But there still remains all to play for. A bill on Lords reform is destined to reach the statute book, which is a rare opportunity. It can, and should, allow constructive progress to be made on the next much-needed steps towards reform – many of whose topics have now been discussed by peers. The second post in the series explores where such progress might be found during the bill’s remaining stages.

Professor Meg Russell FBA is the Director of the Constitution Unit. She is the author of the principal academic book on the House of Lords, and numerous articles and reports on the chamber and its reform. She has served as an adviser on this topic to the former Leader of the House of Commons Robin Cook, the House of Lords Appointments Commission, the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House, and the House of Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee.

Featured image: House of Lords chamber (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0) by House of Lords 2025 / photography by Roger Harris.