Tag Archives: size of the House of Lords

10 reasons why the hereditary peers bill should be amended to constrain Prime Ministerial patronage and the size of the House of Lords 

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The government’s House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill reaches its report stage in the chamber this week – presenting a serious moment for possible amendments. Meg Russell argues that peers should amend the bill to place constraints on the Prime Minister’s ability to appoint unlimited numbers of members to the chamber. This level of unconstrained patronage power is inappropriate in a modern age, and brings the House of Lords and politics as a whole into disrepute. It drives the chamber’s ever-increasing size (now standing at over 850), which should be capped at no larger than the House of Commons. Public opinion overwhelmingly supports this change, and it has long been the settled view of the House of Lords. Another legislative vehicle to implement this essential change may not present itself for decades, so peers should seize the opportunity while they can. 

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Labour’s removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords: 10 key questions answered

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Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto promised to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Today, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill has its second reading in the House of Commons. In this post, Constitution Unit Director and House of Lords expert Meg Russell explores 10 key questions about the bill and Labour’s policy. For example, who are the hereditary peers? How did they get into the House of Lords? How have they survived so long? And what effect will their departure have on the House of Lords? 

  1. How long have the hereditary peers been in the House of Lords? 

The history of the House of Lords is long and complex. It is an ancient institution, but has changed very substantially over the years. The roots of the chamber can be traced to bodies that were drawn together to advise the monarch as long ago as the medieval period. Individuals called to those early assemblies were powerful figures, including major landholders and representatives of the church. Around the 14th century they began meeting separately from others representing the people – so that parliament developed into two distinct chambers, which became the House of Lords and the House of Commons. Initially, there was no guarantee that an individual called to one meeting of the upper chamber would be called to the next. But membership gradually stabilised, and it became established that the members of the nobility who took seats would pass these down the family line along with their titles. By the 13th century the chamber included earls and barons, while the titles Duke and Marquess date to the 14th century 

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Who are the last hereditary peers? 

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The Labour government has pledged to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords. With a bill to do so now in the Commons, Lisa James looks at the profiles of the sitting hereditary peers and asks how their removal might impact the second chamber. 

The remaining hereditary peers will soon be removed from the House of Lords. The reform featured in the Labour manifesto and the new government’s first King’s speech; a short bill has recently been introduced into the House of Commons and will be debated later in the autumn. It will see the remaining hereditary peers removed at the end of the current session of parliament. 

The reasons to remove the remaining hereditary peers include important normative ones, resting on the inappropriateness of hereditary status as a qualification to sit in parliament in a modern democracy. This normative argument is widely (if not universally) considered settled. Alongside principle sit political motives; the majority of hereditaries are Conservative (and only four are Labour). And in practical terms, their removal will reduce the size of the House, which is widely considered too large. This post focuses on the effects of the proposed change, asking how the removal of the hereditaries will affect the composition of the second chamber. 

Background 

The removal of the remaining hereditaries constitutes unfinished business from 25 years ago. For centuries the House of Lords was – excepting the bishops, and latterly the Law Lords – a hereditary body, with new peerages as a matter of course being created as hereditary titles. This changed in 1958, with the passage of the Life Peerages Act. Further fundamental reform followed in 1999, when Tony Blair’s Labour government removed the majority of hereditary peers from the chamber. The bill originally sought to remove all the hereditary peers, but this proved contentious in the Lords itself, and a compromise was brokered to allow it to pass. Thus 92 hereditary seats were retained (and a small number of other hereditary members were given life peerages). It is these final 92 seats which are now set to be abolished. 

The remaining hereditaries are, counterintuitively, the only elected members of the House of Lords. Three different systems operate, according to the compromise reached in 1999. Two seats are reserved for the holders of roles linked to the royal family; 15 are chosen in elections by the whole of the House of Lords; and the remaining 75 are elected by the sitting hereditaries within the relevant party group. Among the latter by-elections, there have famously sometimes been more candidates than voters. 

By-elections were paused via an amendment to the Standing Orders soon after this year’s King’s speech, in anticipation of the bill to remove the hereditaries, which was introduced to the Commons on 5 September. With a handful of seats currently vacant, there are now 88 hereditary peers sitting in the House of Lords. 

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Why Labour should adopt a two-stage approach to House of Lords reform

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Today the Constitution Unit publishes a report jointly with the Institute for Government and Bennett Institute on the options for House of Lords reform. Here, in the second of two posts summarising its conclusions, report author Meg Russell argues that if Labour wins the next election, it should pursue a two-stage approach. This would begin with immediate urgent changes to the appointments process and hereditary peers, while the party consulted on larger-scale proposals such as those set out in the Brown report.

Today the Constitution Unit publishes a new report, House of Lords reform: navigating the obstacles, jointly with the Institute for Government and the Bennett Institute at the University of Cambridge. This is the second of two posts summarising some of the report’s conclusions, with a particular focus on Labour’s options for Lords reform.

The previous post explored proposals from Labour’s commission chaired by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, for an elected ‘Assembly of the Nations and Regions’. It suggested, on the basis of past UK and international experience, that large-scale reform of this kind will be difficult to achieve, and could not be actioned by Labour immediately. The Brown report leaves many open questions on which careful consultation and deliberation would be required. Meanwhile, there are clear problems with the House of Lords which are widely recognised, and would be relatively straightforward to deal with. This post focuses on such beneficial small-scale changes, including:

  • placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords
  • agreeing a formula for the sharing of seats
  • introducing greater quality control on appointments
  • removing the remaining hereditary peers.

More detailed consideration was given to the first three of these options in another recent post on this blog. Hence this one deals with them quite briefly, then draws the strands together, considering a possible strategy for the Labour Party on Lords reform if it comes to power.

Placing a limit on the size of the House of Lords

One of the most visible difficulties with the House of Lords is its growing size. Reform by Tony Blair’s government in 1999 removed most hereditary peers, slashing the chamber from more than 1,200 members to 666. But since then, its size has crept gradually upwards again. There was a net growth of around 70 members under Blair, and well over 100 under David Cameron – though Gordon Brown and Theresa May each presided over net reductions of around 30 members. Boris Johnson’s appointments were also excessive, and concern remains about his possible resignation honours list. Currently, the size of the House of Lords hovers around 800.

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The problem(s) of House of Lords appointments

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Lords appointments are back in the news, with rumours of resignation honours from Boris Johnson, and even possibly Liz Truss. The current unregulated system of prime ministerial patronage causes multiple problems, and new Constitution Unit polling shows widespread public demand for change. Meg Russell reviews the problems and possible solutions, in the context of a bill on Lords appointments due for debate tomorrow. She argues that small-scale changes are now urgently required, and urges party leaders to embrace them – whatever their longer-term aspirations for Lords reform.

Recent weeks have seen revived controversies about appointments to the House of Lords. These include concerns about Boris Johnson’s long-rumoured resignation honours list, now joined by concerns that Liz Truss may want resignation honours of her own after just 49 days as Prime Minister. While the personalities may be different, controversies over Lords appointments are nothing new. The central overarching problem is the unregulated patronage power that rests with the Prime Minister. As this post highlights, a series of other problems follow: regarding the chamber’s size, its party balance, the quality of candidates appointed, the chamber’s reputation and widespread public dissatisfaction with the system.

An end to the Prime Minister’s unfettered appointment power is long overdue. Tomorrow a bill will be debated in the Lords aiming to tackle some of the problems, but as a backbench bill it is unlikely to succeed. Its contents nonetheless provide a useful (though incomplete) guide to the kind of important small-scale changes needed. Both main party leaders now need urgently to propose short-term packages of their own.

The problem of the size of the Lords

Much attention has focused in recent years on the spiralling size of the House of Lords. The current system places no limits whatsoever on the number of members who may be appointed to the chamber by the Prime Minister. Most – though not all – prime ministers have appointed unsustainably. Particularly given that peerages are for life, over-appointment drives the size of the chamber ever upwards. This is a historic problem, visible throughout the 20th century. The Blair government’s reform of 1999 brought the size of the chamber down (from around 1200 to just over 650). But since then it has risen again. Two reports from the Constitution Unit – in 2011 and 2015 – analysed this problem, calling for urgent action. In 2016 the Lord Speaker established a cross-party Committee on the Size of the House, which made recommendations the following year. Centrally these included restraint by the Prime Minister based on a ‘two-out-one-in’ principle – so that only one new peer would be appointed for every two who left, until the chamber stabilised at 600 members. These principles were endorsed by the Commons Public Administration and Constitutional Affairs Committee, and respected by Theresa May. But Boris Johnson ignored them. In 2021, the Lord Speaker’s Committee lamented how he had ‘undone progress’ achieved by his predecessor.

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