After attaining an overwhelming Labour Party majority in the House of Commons in the July 4 elections, the new government led by Sir Keir Starmer confirmed its plans to eliminate the seats reserved for hereditary peers from the House of Lords in the King's Speech of July 17.
However, the campaign pledge to implement a mandatory retirement age for the House of Lords was dropped, possibly because even
members of the Prime Minister's own party spoke out against the ageism of the policy.
A statistically representative poll of British adults conducted by YouGov immediately after the King's Speech asked for their opinion of the announced change:
Removing the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords
Good idea 57%
Wrong priority at the present time 24%
Don't know 19%
Interestingly, even though the hereditary peers' seats are effectively reserved for men, and disproportionately occupied by old and wealthy men, there are no clear divisions in opinion between men and women, between older and younger adults, or between upper/middle- and working-class adults.
However, there is a very large partisan division: The planned reform is far more popular with Labour Party voters (73% good idea, 14% wrong priority) than Conservative Party voters (43% wrong priority, 42% good idea). An obvious possible explanation is that because virtually all hereditary peers in the Lords who are members of a political party belong to the Conservative Party, removing the hereditary peers would eliminate a large bloc of Conservative votes from the House of Lords.
The planned removal also has slightly less support in England (55% good idea, 25% wrong priority) than in Scotland (68% good idea, 14% wrong priority), with Wales in between.
Eight days after the King's Speech, on July 25, 2024, the House of Lords – with the agreement of both governing and opposition parties – voted to suspend elections for the hereditary peers' seats until January 2026.
That, until 24 January 2026, Standing Order 9(5) (Hereditary peers: by-elections) be amended as follows: leave out “three” and insert “eighteen”.
My Lords, I am bringing this Motion forward after discussions with the usual channels which followed conversations with colleagues across the House. The current position is that by-elections need to take place within three months of there being a vacancy. This Motion simply extends that period, by amending the standing order, to 18 months. In practical terms, for a vacancy that arose today, a by-election would need to be held by January 2026. After 18 months—in January 2026—the Motion will be sunset and the normal time limits for by-elections will come back if they are needed by that point.
This is a temporary measure that recognises that the House will in the near future debate in more detail the wider issue of hereditary membership of your Lordships’ House. The usual channels are unanimous in their view that ongoing by-elections during the parliamentary consideration of a Bill would be deeply undesirable in this context. In particular, the Cross-Bench and Conservative groups, which have two current vacancies, do not wish those by-elections to occur.
Am I right to read this as a confirmation that the Government is serious about removing the hereditary peers' seats in the near future and intends to do so before January 2026?
