The UK is ejecting hereditary nobles from Parliament after 700 years
LONDON (AP) — Centuries of British political tradition will end weeks after Parliament votes to scrap hereditary aristocrats the non-elected House of Lords.
On Tuesday evening, members of the Upper House dropped their objections to legislation passed by the House of Commons ousting dozens of dukes, earls and viscounts who inherited seats in Parliament as well as their aristocratic titles.
Government minister Nick Thomas-Symonds said the change ended “an archaic and undemocratic principle”.
“Our parliament should always be a place where talent is recognized and merit counts,” he said. “It should never be a gallery of old boys’ networks, nor a place where titles, many of which were bestowed centuries ago, have power over the will of the people.”
The House of Lords plays an important role in British parliamentary democracy, reviewing laws passed by the elected House of Commons. But critics have long argued that it is cumbersome and undemocratic.
The case of Peter Mandelsonwho resigned from the Lords in February after revelations about his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epsteinbrought renewed attention to the upper house and the problem of misbehavior by lords.
The chamber currently has more than 800 members, making it the second largest legislative chamber in the world after the National People’s Congress of China.
For most of its 700-year history, its membership consisted of noble men – almost never women – who inherited their sees, alongside a handful of bishops. In the 1950s, these were joined by “life peers” – retired politicians, civic leaders and other notable government appointees, who today make up the vast majority of the chamber. About 1 in 10 members are currently hereditary peers.
In 1999, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Labor government expelled most of the 750 hereditary peers, although 92 of them were allowed to stay temporarily to avoid an aristocrats’ rebellion.
It was still 25 years ago That of Prime Minister Keir Starmer The current Labor government has introduced legislation to oust the remaining “hereditaries”.
The lords fought back, forcing a compromise that will allow an undisclosed number of hereditary members to remain by being “recycled” into life peers.
The bill will become law once King Charles III grants royal assent – a formality – and the hereditary peers will leave at the end of the current parliamentary session this spring, completing a political process that began a quarter of a century ago. In Lords terms, that’s fast.
Labor remains committed to the long term replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is “more representative of the United Kingdom”. If past experience is to be believed, change will come slowly.
“So here we are at the end of more than seven centuries of service as hereditary peers in this Parliament,” Nicholas True, the leader of the opposition Conservative Party in the House of Lords, told the chamber.
“Thousands of peers have served their country here and thousands of improvements have been made to the law,” he said. “This wasn’t just a stereotypical Hermine reaction story. Many of these people, no doubt, had flaws, but for the most part, they served their nation faithfully and well.”
