This week we are witnessing an increasingly familiar sight – a change of prime minister. Keir Starmer has left office just over two years after winning a landslide and made way for Andy Burnham.
During Starmer’s time in Number 10, there have been some significant wins for democracy that are worth marking, many of which the ERS has long been campaigning for.
Removing the final Hereditary Peers
Probably Starmer’s most significant constitutional reform was ending the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The reform removed the remaining 84 hereditary members, whose right to sit in the Lords was gifted to them through an accident of birth. It will seem absurd to many that this practice survived in a modern democracy.
Yet even this reform met fierce resistance in the Lords, with peers delaying the Bill and threatening to obstruct other legislation in retaliation. It took the government around 18 months to pass the Bill through both Houses of Parliament, and it had to agree life peerages for 26 former hereditary peers as part of the compromise that secured its passage. It is a credit to Starmer and his government that they finally ended this woefully outdated practice.
One fly in the ointment is that Starmer has appointed more new peers to the Lords than the hereditaries he removed and looks set to add even more as he departs, despite it already having well over 700 members. The government has argued this is because Labour need to become the largest party in the upper house to ensure their legislative agenda passes. Yet, this just underscores the farcical state of the Lords and the need for further reforms to make it a smaller, democratic chamber.
Restoring the traditional system for mayoral elections
Earlier this year, the English Devolution and Community Empowerment Act 2026 received Royal Assent, providing for the return of the Supplementary Vote (SV) system for mayoral elections.
The preferential SV system had been used for mayoral and the soon to be discontinued police and crime commissioner elections since their creation, until the last government changed them to First Past the Post, removing voters’ option to indicate a second preference on their ballot paper. Under FPTP, some mayors won office on shrunken mandates. The Mayor of the West of England, for example, was elected in 2025 on just 25% of the vote.
The move back to SV should be lauded, as it will make elections for these important political offices fairer by allowing voters to indicate a second preference, giving more voters a say in the final outcome and helping mayors secure broader support among people in their area.
The Representation of the People Bill
Although it has not yet passed, the Representation of the People Bill promises some significant reforms to strengthen and renew our democracy. The headline measure in the Bill is expanding the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds, something the ERS has long argued for.
This would make the voting age consistent across the UK, as 16- and 17-year-olds can already vote in Scottish Parliament and Senedd elections, as well as local elections in Scotland and Wales. It will also help strengthen our democracy by helping young people cast that first habit-forming vote at a point when they can be supported by the education system.
Restoring Electoral Commission independence
As part of the Bill, the government has also included a provision to repeal ministers’ power to set a strategy and policy statement for the Electoral Commission, restoring an important safeguard for its independence.
When the previous government introduced a requirement for the Electoral Commission to ‘have regard to’ a strategy and policy statement set by ministers, we campaigned vociferously against the move. This is because we believe the Electoral Commission needs to be truly independent of the government of the day to do its job properly.
The Commission itself was critical of the move, warning that it “is inconsistent with the role that an independent electoral commission plays in a healthy democratic system”. It is a very positive step to see the Bill contain a provision to repeal this requirement. The change is not yet in force: it depends on the Bill becoming law and ministers setting a commencement date.
Other areas of the Bill
The Bill’s remaining Commons stages, which had been scheduled for 14 July, were postponed and will be rescheduled for early in September. This gives the incoming Burnham administration an opportunity to review the legislation and consider potential amendments, meaning the shape of the Bill could change.
The Bill already contains powers to pilot and introduce more automated voter registration, which could bring millions of eligible but unregistered voters onto the electoral rolls, and promises to expand the types of ID voters can use on polling day. There is also a growing debate over the need for a general cap on donations to political parties. The final form the Bill will take will be shaped by the incoming administration and Parliament.
Keir Starmer failed to address the voting system
One glaring omission from Starmer’s time in office is any significant action on electoral reform of Westminster. When he was running to become leader in 2020, he said that Labour had to “address the fact that millions of people vote in safe seats and they feel their vote doesn’t count”. However, shortly before the general election, Starmer changed his stance and backed First Past the Post, shortly before it handed him a huge majority on just over a third of the vote in what was the most disproportional general election on record.
Despite Starmer’s own lack of action in this area, there has been growing support for PR in the country but also in the Labour Party, which has culminated with a successor in Andy Burnham who is an avowed advocate for electoral reform at Westminster.
As he leaves Downing Street, Starmer will be mulling the legacy he leaves from his time in office. His tenure in Number 10 has seen some substantive changes to our democracy, and he deserves credit for getting the ball rolling and making the case for these important democratic reforms. However, it is clear there is still a lot more to do and that can be achieved in the second half of this parliament.
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