Ending of Hereditary Peers Confirmed in King’s Speech

King Charles III, wearing the Imperial State Crown and the Robe of State, and Queen Camilla, wearing the George IV State Diadem, leave after the State Opening of Parliament, in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster in London on July 17, 2024. (Hannah McKay/PA Wire)

Hereditary peers will no longer be able to sit and vote in the House of Lords, in plans unveiled in the King’s Speech on Wednesday.

The move would be the first step in the government’s pledge to reform and modernise the upper house, which the Labour Party had promised to do in its manifesto.

King Charles III said in his speech delivered to Parliament, “Measures to modernise the constitution will be introduced including House of Lords reform to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.”

According to a briefing note from Downing Street, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is a short and narrowly-focused bill which is “the first step in a wider reform to the second chamber.”

“No other modern comparable democracies allow individuals to sit and vote in their legislature by right of birth,” said the note, calling the current status “outdated and indefensible.”

The bill aims to complete the process that was started with the House of Lords Act 1999, which created interim arrangements to retain 92 hereditary peers for a short period. Consensus could not be reached on wider reforms in the past 25 years, “so these hereditary peers have remained in the House by accident rather than by design.”

Abolishing the Lords

The House of Lords is currently comprised of hereditary peers and life peers, or members of the upper house who are nominated by the prime minister and appointed for life. Life peers are not able to pass on their title to their children.

The ending of hereditary peers represents Labour’s manifesto pledge to bring about immediate modernisation.

The party had said it planned to replace the House of Lords “with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations.”

Among other plans for reforming the Lords which have not made it into this session is a mandatory retirement age of 80 for peers.

No Votes for Under-18s

Absent from the King’s Speech was a bill to fulfil one of Labour’s other major pieces of proposed constitutional reform: lowering the voting age to 16.

The manifesto had said that a Labour government would “increase the engagement of young people” in the democratic process by extending the franchise to 16- and 17-year-olds, giving them “the right to vote in all elections.”

House of Commons leader Lucy Powell said that while the plans did not feature in this session of Parliament—with sessions lasting for around a year—there were “plenty of big bills that didn’t make it into this” speech either.

Ms. Powell told Radio 5 Live that lowering the voting age is “absolutely a manifesto commitment.” Suggesting it would come in a later session of the parliamentary cycle, the Labour MP for Manchester Central said that she hopes 16- and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the next election.

“That’s the intention,” she said.

Modernise the Commons

King Charles also indicated that changes would come to the House of Commons, confirming that the government will propose a modernisation committee of the lower chamber, another Labour Party manifesto pledge.

The king said the modernisation committee “will be tasked with driving up standards, improving work practices, and reforming procedures.”

King Charles III reads the King's Speech in the House of Lords Chamber during the State Opening of Parliament in the House of Lords at the Palace of Westminster in London on July 17, 2024. (Henry Nicholls/PA Wire)

The party had also promised to support an immediate ban on MPs taking up paid advisory or consultancy roles, saying that “the absence of rules on second jobs also means some constituents end up with MPs who spend more time on their second job, or lobbying for outside interests, than on representing them.”

“We will task the Modernisation Committee to take forward urgent work on the restrictions that need to be put in place to prevent MPs from taking up roles that stop them serving their constituents and the country,” the manifesto had said.