Any reform to the House of Lords must focus on enhancing its power of scrutiny
Reform of the House of Lords is back on the agenda with measures due in the King’s Speech. Labour’s manifesto proposed “an immediate modernisation, by introducing legislation to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”.
It would be the end of the deal agreed by Tony Blair which enabled 92 hereditary peers to survive after Tony Blair’s last major reform. (There is supposed to be a special patch of woodland of 92 trees on the Marquess of Salisbury’s Hatfield estate, a gift to him from the hereditaries whose survival he negotiated in one of those provisional deals which can last a long time.)
It is impossible to defend the hereditary principle as a basis for sitting in a modern legislature so Labour should not expect any serious opposition. The only question will be how rapidly the hereditary peers go – from an all out cull straightway through to slower disappearance by not replacing ones who depart. Some hereditaries, who make the greatest contribution, might perhaps be awarded life peerages.
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