MPs back ending 'indefensible' hereditary peers in House of Lords

Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said there should no place in the 21st century 'reserved for those who are born into certain families' as MPs backed plans to rid Parliament of hereditary peers

Labour's plans to abolish hereditary peers in the House of Lords have been approved by MPs.

A new government Bill - aimed at finally clearing out those who inherit their titles through family ties - passed its first Commons hurdle on Tuesday evening.

Legislation introduced by the ex-PM Tony Blair in 1999 reduced the number of hereditary peers in the upper chamber - but 92 remained as a compromise.

Labour promised during the election campaign to finally remove the 700-year-old "indefensible" right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. It forms the first phase of the party's plan to reform the Lords - one of the biggest second chambers in the world with 804 peers.

The bill will now pass through other stages in the Commons before being passed to the House of Lords - where it could face fierce opposition. In the debate to rid Parliament of the remaining hereditary peers, Cabinet Office Minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said it was a "change that is long overdue".

He said: "In the 21st century there should not be places in our Parliament, making our laws, reserved for those who are born into certain families."

Referring to Labour's election winning manifesto, which promised to abolish the "indefensible" hereditary peers, he added: "This government has a mandate to reform the House of Lords. And it's a matter of principle for this Government, committed to fairness and equality.

"It isn't personal, it isn't a comment on the contribution or service of any individual hereditary peer past or present, we are grateful to all peers who commit their time to valuable public service. What we do not accept is that in this era, as a matter of principle, anyone should have a position in either House on the basis of their ancestry."

The SNP MP Pete Wishart also compared the peers to hit-series Game of Thrones as he hit out at the "red leather-upholstered, gold-plated Narnia".

He told the Commons: "The first thing you've got to try and not do when you consider this Bill is to try not to laugh. Not to laugh out loud at the sheer ridiculousness of considering, in 2024, whether places should be reserved in our legislature for a curious subset of a particular class of person based on birthright.

"This is parliamentary participation defined by the Game Of Thrones principle, where the great houses of olde England or olde Britannia knock seven shades of whatever out of each other for the right to run this country by breeding."

He added: "I suppose in some sort of way, they're our own Baratheons and Targaryens, only without the fun, without the dragons and the box office appeal. But it's now time to break the wheel. For them down the corridor there, winter must be coming. What we have down there is an embarrassment and an unreformable laughing stock, a plaything of Prime Ministers and the personification of a dying establishment that represents another age."

But the ex-Tory Deputy PM Sir Oliver Dowden said the Government is removing voting rights from hereditary peers for "optics" and is "obsessed with change for change's sake".

He told MPs: "The checks and balances of the Lords - its tried and tested conventions - work. The Lords does not claim to be a democratic chamber, and that is the key point, this elected House has primacy. Now, of course, the British constitution does and should continue to evolve, but we should only fix what is broken and be cautious about rushing into change. Our evolution should start with questions of efficacy, not optics."