For weeks now we have watched the bill to remove the 88 remaining hereditary peers make slow progress through the House of Lords. Only last week did the legislation finish committee stage, but not before peers spent five whole days debating it while putting forward over 100 amendments to the short two-page bill.
The affair appeared to be a concerted effort in legislative foot-dragging aimed at eating up as much parliamentary time as possible. This was especially evident in the fact that many of the amendments debated had nothing to do with matter of whether the hereditary peers should be removed.
This weekend, Lord Nicholas True, leader of the Conservatives in the Lords, cleared up any uncertainty as to ultimate motives behind the slow walking of the bill. In an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, the peer warned the government that if the “purge” of the hereditary peers went ahead it would face “very aggressive procedural action” on the rest of its legislative agenda. This could involve filibustering, wrecking amendments and using ‘ping pong’, the process where bills pass back and forth between the Commons and Lords delaying their passing. However, in the article Lord True also made an “offer to the government” for peers to back off delaying its legislation if it allowed a “goodly number” of the hereditaries to remain.
“It’s not a threat. But I think if relations broke down, as night follows day, you would find that a lot of people, perhaps on the back benches, would put down amendments that would slow things down”
“My offer to the Government is that in return for proper respect and understanding and allowing a goodly number of hereditary peers to stay, we should stick to reasonable, sensible, proper constitutional arrangements. That you don’t keep ping·ponging all the time, that you don’t kind of have very aggressive procedural action.”
Peers threaten government with ‘very aggressive procedural action’ if herediaries removed
Let’s be clear what we are witnessing here, this is a case of unelected politicians opening trying to block a government’s manifesto pledge with a democratic mandate behind it. This is a completely back-to-front version of democracy where unelected politicians are attempting to thwart legislation voted on at a general election and that has made its way through the democratically elected chamber.
A counter to this is that these concerns may seem somewhat premature. After all, the government has an unassailable majority in the Commons and the bill is explicitly backed in its manifesto, with Labour pledging at the last election “to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords”. Yet, this was also the case in the late 1990s when the New Labour government commanded an historic parliamentary majority and was armed with an explicit manifesto pledge to “end the hereditary principle in the House of Lords”. Back then it was also the threat from peers opposed to the removal of the hereditaries to hold-up and delay the rest of government’s legislative agenda that ultimately led to ministers backing down and allowing 92 of the then more than 600 hereditary peers to retain their seats in the Lords.
What we are seeing today is as a naked attempt to repeat that same democracy-denying playbook. Peers are in effect abusing their position to pressure the government into folding on its manifesto pledge to remove all the remaining hereditaries.
A back-to-front version of democracy
If this were to happen again it would be a serious indictment of how our democracy is working in practice, with the wishes of unelected and hereditary politicians taking primacy over an elected government and a manifesto pledge backed by democratic mandate.
It feels surreal in 2025 to be having to litigate the reasons why hereditary legislators have no place in a modern democracy. No one should have a job-for-life shaping the laws we all live under gifted to them through birthright.
The behaviour of opposition peers over the hereditaries bill also makes a mockery of the arguments often advanced in defence of having an unelected upper chamber: that it essentially acts as a body of impartial experts gently refining and revising the legislation that comes out of the Commons. This episode reveals the Lords acting in a highly partisan and aggressive way to protect a group of its own members and ward off further attempts to reform it democratically.
The debate around Lords reform can often become very technical, yet there is a simple principle at the heart of the case for reform: the people who shape our laws should be chosen by and accountable to the people who live under those laws.
Peers behaviour over hereditaries makes most compelling case for Lords reform
In 2022, Keir Starmer was unequivocal about where he stood on Lords reform when he described the current undemocratic upper chamber as ‘indefensible’ and pledged to replace it with an elected house. The Bill to remove the hereditaries is just the first stage of the government’s efforts to reform the Lords, with a second stage looking turn it into a modern, democratically accountable chamber.
What has unfolded in the last few weeks is the unedifying spectacle of unelected peers attempting to thwart democratically backed efforts to reform the Lords, in an inversion of how democracy is meant to work. It only underscores the need for the government to be resolute in removing all the remaining hereditaries and move urgently onto the second stage of Lord reform to make sure no part of Parliament is detached and unaccountable to the people it serves.
As in their attempts to thwart Lords reform peers are ultimately making the most compelling argument for it.
Have you had enough of entitled peers? Add your name to our call for an elected chamber