House of Lords Reform

Tuesday 20th October 2026 Westminster Hall

16:30

[Dr Simon Opher (Stroud) (Lab) [R]]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered House of Lords reform.

It is a pleasure to bring this debate to Parliament as chair of the all-party parliamentary group on House of Lords reform. A few weeks ago, I showed a group of United States doctors around Parliament, which involved sitting in the Public Gallery of the House of Lords, looking at the King Charles throne, the Woolsack and a scattering of some quite elderly peers. One doctor said, “How do these guys get in here?”. When I answered that they were appointed by their mates, they all laughed—surely I was joking. Sadly, I was not joking.

Reform of the House of Lords has been on the cards for centuries. The House was actually abolished in 1649, but was reinstated a few years later, and it has been the subject of intense debate ever since. The idea of unelected peers having inherited access to Parliament alongside crony appointees controlling the laws that Parliament produces is clearly ridiculous. It is no wonder that the crisis of confidence in our political system is at an all-time high.

This Government have actually taken quite big strides—probably more than others—on the long overdue removal of hereditary peers. I also welcome proposals to impose a retirement age and a minimum participation requirement, but we cannot afford to push this constitutional necessity further down the road. I will take this opportunity to set out the case for reform of the House of Lords and how we can go about implementing it.

The function of our second Chamber is to scrutinise and amend legislation passed by the elected Commons. There are many exceptional Lords who do a really good job at that, but their contribution is undermined by their complete lack of legitimacy. It is simply not right that our Parliament has more unelected lawmakers than lawmakers with a mandate from the people. During the Makerfield by-election, the Prime Minister called it “scandalous” and expressed support for an early change to the Lords.

One of the things that has most surprised me is learning that the House of Lords remains a self-governing institution. In the last session, we saw a handful of unelected peers, many of whom were rejected by the voters at the last election, abuse that fact to stall the progression of legislation passed by the elected Commons.

The other place is also deeply unrepresentative of our country. Over 55% of peers live in London and the south-east. I know that our Prime Minister is very concerned with that, and that he has called for a senate of nations and regions to replace the Lords, so that every corner of our country is properly represented in both of our Chambers.

The public also want change. Only 16% support the current status quo; 70% have little or no confidence in the institution, and a majority want an entirely elected upper Chamber. The voters gave a very clear mandate for a Labour manifesto that included a commitment to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second Chamber, more representative of the regions and nations.

What could a second Chamber look like? That is a complex issue; we should convene a commission of citizens and experts to decide on its role and make-up. It should still absolutely be possible to retain the expertise that we have there, and that is exactly what our manifesto has committed us to.

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman has made a good start on setting out his case. However, does he not see the irony in calling for an appointed committee of the public and experts to look at how democratic the House of Lords is?

[Dr Opher]

I would say that we need experts to look at how our democracy works and to devise a better way of doing it.

[Ben Lake (Ceredigion Preseli) (PC)]

I congratulate the hon. Member on securing this debate. Does he agree that such a consultative process might well come about from a Bill that my noble Friend, Baroness Smith of Llanfaes, has introduced to the second Chamber? It should indeed be for the experts to provide some ideas, and for us and members of the public to consult on the best way forward for the second Chamber.

[Dr Opher]

I have been working with Baroness Smith on her Bill. We need to get the great minds of this country to devise a good political system, one that reflects our country and gives us our best government.

I suggest that we need a commission to look into the matter. That commission could take many experts. How it is actually constituted remains something we can debate. The Government have announced a commission on electoral reform; maybe that could be extended to examine the composition of the second Chamber, because that would be a holistic approach to the system. I see some hon. Members shaking their heads.

I will briefly touch on an issue that many hon. Members care about: the lack of transparency in the other place. According to research by Transparency International UK, 128 peers hold paid political advisory roles that risk breaching parliamentary rules. We must strengthen the House of Lords code of conduct to put beyond doubt that legislators who serve in the House of Lords should not be lobbyists. Since 2013, almost a quarter of all nominations from political parties have been political donors—that is the ultimate cronyism.

I know many hon. Members wish to speak, so in conclusion I ask the Minister to meet with the APPG on House of Lords reform to discuss how the Government intend to fulfil their manifesto commitment to consult the public on an alternative second Chamber. Will the Minister consider expanding the remit of the commission on electoral reform to cover the role and composition of the other place? It is time—to quote someone who I do not normally agree with— to “take back control.”

[Several hon. Members rose—]

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob if they want to be called to speak. I see that a number of Members are bobbing, so I will give priority to those who applied early to speak in the debate.

16:37

[Andrew Rosindell (Romford) (Reform)]

It is a pleasure to serve under you, Sir John. I have been a Member of Parliament for 25 years, probably longer than anyone else in this debate, and I believe that the House of Lords, for all its faults over the years, provides a balance to an elected Chamber. I am afraid to say that the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) misses the point of the House of Lords. We do not want another elected Chamber to rival the House of Commons. We need a house of experts—or elders, if you like, Sir John—people with knowledge, expertise and experience who have served this country over many decades in different walks of life.

[Mike Martin (Tunbridge Wells) (LD)]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

In a moment. We need also those who represent continuity. Sir John, you will know better than most that continuity is the foundation of the success of this nation. To ignore what has gone on in the past and to lose all that continuous wisdom from the ages is pure vandalism. We do not want another elected set of politicians who we know will be, effectively, appointed by party headquarters—the leader’s favourites will be put on some list and put into the House of Lords, even though many of them would prefer to be in the House of Commons—as a second set of politicians.

I want a House of Lords that is depoliticised in many ways, so I am not keen on the fact that Labour, the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have put so many people into the Lords who were friends of the leader at the time, or special advisers to Ministers and suchlike. What I want to see is more people who are truly representative of the whole country but can provide knowledge, expertise and experience to make our parliamentary democracy stronger and better.

It cannot be right that a political party that came third at the last general election has zero representation in the House of Lords. There are 80 Lib Dem peers, yet their party received 600,000 fewer votes than Reform UK. The Greens, I believe, have three representatives—

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

Two.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Two? Okay. Plaid Cymru also has representatives. The Democratic Unionist party has six, but only five MPs. The thing is disproportionate. There should at least be representation of all political parties. Based on the votes at the last election, there certainly need to be a number of Reform UK Members of the House of Lords.

[Mike Martin]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way, because there is just so much to feast upon there in one intervention. Just to draw out an inconsistency in his speech, he likes experts and history—I like them as well—yet he says that we should have an upper Chamber that is based on the votes at the last election. Presumably, those would be appointed by the parties, so how does he intend to balance those two tensions?

[Andrew Rosindell]

The hon. Member will know that the way it works in the House of Lords is that it is based on party appointments. The Prime Minister will make nominations; so will the Leader of the Opposition; so will the leader of the Liberal Democrats; so will the leader of the Greens. They will nominate a sprinkling of new peers every so often, usually once a year. Well, where was the invitation for the leader of Reform UK to nominate a number of Reform UK Members of the House of Lords? The hon. Member must surely accept that that is very wrong when we consider that Reform UK was the third largest party in terms of votes at the last election.

[Dr Opher]

Will the hon. Member give way?

[Andrew Rosindell]

I will in a moment. I go back to my original argument: we are getting this wrong. We will regret the day that we become just one of two elected Chambers. We will regret that day. It will create a rivalry between two sets of elected politicians, who will both claim to be truly representative of the people who have put them there, instead of having the primacy of the elected House of Commons—ultimately, we are elected by the people of this country and we can make the final decision through the Parliament Acts. At the end of the day, we do not actually have to be obedient to the House of Lords.

What I do know is that, within the House of Lords, there is an opportunity to have people with enormous knowledge and expertise, whether they are former Cabinet Ministers, former ambassadors or high commissioners, heads of industry, heads of trade unions or representatives of the different faith groups. It is good to have people like that. It is right that we still have the established Church of England represented through the bishops; although, these days, they are rather more to the left than I would like, they still represent the established Church of this country.

[Dr Opher]

I thought that, in Reform’s manifesto, it was going to abolish the House of Lords and replace it with a much smaller, more democratic second Chamber.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Well, I did not stand on that manifesto. I joined Reform UK after that manifesto. I can tell the hon. Member now that that is not our policy today. We are not going to abolish the House of Lords. We are not going to engage in constitutional vandalism.

Throughout the ages, we have evolved our constitutional and parliamentary democracy in a way that has given us strength and continuity, and has allowed us to change not in some radical direction, whereby minorities and people with vested interests can finish up controlling the institutions of this country, but in a way that is evolution rather than revolution. There is no requirement to abolish the House of Lords. There should not be an elected second Chamber.

New Zealand got rid of its second Chamber, so it has only one elected Chamber. I would prefer that, frankly, to a second load of politicians in the House of Lords who wish that they were MPs, but could not get there, so they were put in place by their friends in party headquarters. We do not want that. If we eventually do abolish the upper House, frankly it would be better just to have one Chamber than to have a second elected Chamber, because there would be rivalry between the two.

Look at it like this: if we choose carefully, change the system and make it more meritocratic in terms of experience, knowledge and the kind of people who we really want in the House of Lords, we will be buying in expertise at low cost. Otherwise, we will be paying consultants and experts that work for companies to do an effective job of scrutinising legislation. What is the point of that when we can give someone a peerage? That could be someone with vast knowledge, perhaps someone who has been an ambassador to another country, headed up an important institution or contributed to the establishment of an amazing charity, and who has vast knowledge from that. It could be someone like Sebastian Coe, the Olympic gold medallist who went on to run the London Olympics in 2012. Those people have value, but they will not stand for election, so we would lose all of them—[Interruption.] Well, they would not stand for election to the Lords.

As I say, we would lose good people. The great and the good would go and we would finish up, as I said earlier, with people who want to be politicians but would have to settle for being second-best. That is not good enough. We should do what we have always done in this country and allow our constitution and our parliamentary democracy to change—yes, change by all means—in a gentle and evolutionary way, so that we do not get rid of a tried and tested system that has lasted for generations and, with all its faults, done this country rather well over the centuries.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I shall call the Front Benchers from 5.10 pm. As you can see, a lot of people are standing, which gives you a feel for how long you have got. So, it is three or four minutes each, I am afraid.

16:46

[Phil Brickell (Bolton West) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John.

First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this critical debate. He has been a champion in pursuing long overdue reform to the upper Chamber.

Let me start by saying, as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on anti-corruption and responsible tax, that I have had the privilege of working with a number of excellent peers who are deeply committed to legislative scrutiny and improving our legislation. There are many members of the Lords who perform a vital public service. But good people can still be trapped in a bad system, and the public can see that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud has said, why is it acceptable in this country for lawmakers in the upper House to work as lobbyists at the same time? How can the public be expected to trust the system when those shaping legislation can also be paid to influence it? In my old life as a compliance officer, that would not have passed the most basic conflict of interest test and it should not pass such a test in Parliament. Transparency International UK has gone so far as to call the House of Lords:

“a lobbying network for hire.”

If that does not set alarm bells ringing—Transparency International UK is the true expert—I do not know what will.

[James Naish (Rushcliffe) (Lab)]

Only a couple of individuals are involved, so my hon. Friend might not be aware that there are still Lords who sit on Hong Kong’s Court of Final Appeal and who can be paid up to £40,000 a month for doing so, despite the national security law effectively meaning that the courts in Hong Kong are kangaroo courts. Does he agree that nobody from this place—either from this House or the other place—should be involved in anything to do with implementing the national security law in Hong Kong?

[Phil Brickell]

I welcome that intervention from my hon. Friend, and he is absolutely right to talk about kangaroo courts in Hong Kong and to say that UK lawmakers should not be complicit in supporting them.

While we are asking difficult questions, here is another one: why is it possible to be appointed to the legislature of the United Kingdom and then barely show up? I can think of no other workplace where someone can disappear for months, sometimes even years, and still retain the right to walk back in and take part in making decisions that affect millions of people. An honour should come with responsibilities; membership of Parliament should not be a lifetime pass with no expectation of participation.

Then there is the size of the place. With about 800 peers— 800—the House of Lords is larger than almost every comparable second chamber in the democratic world. When people talk about a bloated state, perhaps they should start by walking through Westminster Hall and turning right at Central Lobby. Nobody seriously believes that adding more peers automatically leads to better scrutiny; what it does lead to is a system that looks increasingly detached from the public it serves.

Also, who gets to participate? The overwhelming majority of working peers are based in London and the south-east, and it is not right that, for example, the north-west— my region—is so under-represented. However, it is hardly surprising, given that the accommodation allowance is £125 a night. That sounds reasonable, but try finding somewhere to stay in central London at that rate. The result is obvious: those with substantial means, or those who live close enough to commute, have a built-in advantage. We should not have a legislature that prices out talents from the nations and regions.

Then there is the transparency. Why do peers not have to declare how much time they spend on outside employment compared with their parliamentary duties? Why do they not have to declare how much they are paid for those jobs? The public are entitled to know where lawmakers are earning their money, and who could be influencing them.

Elsewhere on standards, the new legislation on disgraced peers, announced in the last King’s Speech, is long overdue. Will the Minister reaffirm the Government’s commitment to that proposal? Elsewhere, what progress has been made on the Government’s three other manifesto commitments: first, introducing new participation requirements; secondly, delivering a national and regional balance for the upper Chamber; and finally, and most importantly, reforming the appointments process? Removing the worst offenders is not the same as fixing the system that allowed them through the door, which is why we need stronger suitability and propriety checks through the House of Lords Appointments Commission. The reforms should include putting HOLAC on a statutory footing and giving it an effective veto on demonstrably unsuitable appointments.

Let us tackle one final issue head-on: why should major party donors be rewarded with lifelong seats in the legislature? Public appointments should be earned through service and expertise, not purchased through cheque books. The House of Lords does important work, but many diligent and hard-working peers feel that they are having their reputations dragged through the mud by certain individuals who are exploiting, or who are sometimes actively enabled by, a broken system. We need a smaller House, a cleaner House and a more transparent House. That is not radical; surely it is just common sense.

16:51

[Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) not only on securing the debate, but on the manner in which he introduced it. I thank him for intervening on the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell) to expose the case that he was making. Indeed, the hon. Member for Romford indicated that he was happy to join a party that proposed to abolish the thing that he wants to protect. He wants to depoliticise the thing that he wants to politicise further, and he wishes to maintain continuity of a body by changing it quite radically, according to his proposals.

One of the reasons we are here today is that a small number of Lords made a very eloquent and strong case for their own abolition through the manner in which they treated the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill earlier this year. They spent many months filibustering in order to effectively block that Bill, exceeding the powers that the House of Lords should have. I have often raised the question of why we want a second Chamber, and I think that most people, even the hon. Member for Romford, agree that it is there for sober, independent scrutiny of the legislation that we send down to the Lords. Their role is to encourage us to take a less tribal view on the legislation that we seek to take forward, and to provide expert scrutiny that is helpful for the processes we are engaged in.

However, as the hon. Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) put so articulately, the system of patronage is both corrupting and extremely corruptible. Clearly, that needs to be swept away in any reforms to the House of Lords, but the question is: what do we put in its place? I entirely understand the emotional response, which is to say that we should have an elected Chamber, but I want to challenge that idea. I have often said that we want to retain the best of the House of Lords Appointments Commission because it provides at least a template of a helpful function, particularly if we can attract the kind of people that the hon. Member for Romford described, so that a sliver—a proportion, a minority—of Members are selected according to the qualities that they can bring to the place. The rest of it should be on a jury service basis—or in other words, a citizens assembly. That has been proposed by a large number of people and organisations over time.

Of course, I can entirely understand the laudable and emotional response that one elects the Chamber, but there is a risk, which the hon. Member for Romford mentioned, that it becomes either a lapdog or a logjam to this Chamber. In those circumstances—we saw it with the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—the Lords would argue that they have the democratic legitimacy to challenge the decisions of the primary Chamber. We do not, for example, say that because board members for the Environment Agency, Natural England, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the Climate Change Committee or the Low Pay Commission have power and political influence over the decisions that are taken in our country, they should be elected. On that basis, I am sorry to say that the arguments for an elected Chamber evaporate away.

We need to find other ways of ensuring that we have the genuine and sober second-thought and independent scrutiny that this Chamber needs and deserves. Otherwise, quite frankly, it would be better to turn the place into a museum.

16:56

[Kim Leadbeater (Spen Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate.

When I became an MP more than five years ago, I entered this place with a very open mind about most things, which is perhaps just as well, including about to the role of the House of Lords. I did not feel strongly about the other place one way or the other, but since I have been an MP, I have developed not only a greater understanding of what the Lords do and how they do it, but quite a deep respect for the important role that they play in our democracy. I am supportive of a second Chamber. I believe in an upper House. It scrutinises and revises. It brings fresh eyes, new ideas and, if I may be so bold, decades of experience and expertise. It can make our legislation stronger and our democratic process more robust.

There have been many examples of that over the years. The Domestic Abuse Act 2021 was strengthened in the Lords, where an amendment introduced a new offence of non-fatal strangulation, closing a gap that had let abusers escape charges. Similarly, Cross-Bench and Opposition peers spearheaded amendments to create a powerful new corporate criminal offence to prevent fraud in the Economic Crime Act and Corporate Transparency 2023, in a significant moment in the fight against economic crime. That is what good revision looks like. It is responsible lawmaking.

However, I come to this debate with direct experience of when the second Chamber has sadly not behaved responsibly or appropriately. As the sponsor of a private Member’s Bill—I think it is fair to say a reasonably well-known piece of legislation, the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill—I ended up spending a significant amount of time in the Lords.

Following months and months of hard work in the Commons, including countless meetings with outstanding civil servants from the Department of Health and Social Care and the Ministry of Justice, a comprehensive Bill Committee that heard from nearly 50 witnesses, and powerful and emotional debates on Second and Third Readings, the Bill made its way to the Lords. It had had over 100 hours of scrutiny. It was examined line by line. It was amended and strengthened, and it passed the elected Chamber with a clear majority on both occasions. Yet despite a clear majority of elected MPs, having engaged at length with their constituents and taken the issue extremely seriously, voting to send the Bill to the other place, what happened next was not what most MPs, however they voted—and more importantly, the public—either expected or deserved.

I was very grateful to the peers who engaged in meaningful scrutiny and discussion about the Bill, and there were many of those. I was in awe at times of their experience and expertise, and it was a pleasure working with them. In some instances we disagreed, but we did so respectfully. Myself and Lord Falconer, the sponsor of the Bill in the other place, were open to making changes to strengthen the legislation. There were amendments that we were happy to accept, and we engaged with peers in good faith. However, nearly 1,200 amendments were tabled. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud said, around half of them came from just seven peers. Looking at the content of many of those amendments, which were inappropriate and at times cruel, it was clear to many that some peers intentionally used every tool at their disposal to bring the legislative process to a standstill.

As we know, the other place, unlike the Commons, is self-regulating. There are no selection of amendments or time limits, so every amendment tabled is likely to be debated. There was seemingly a desire from some peers to slow the process down and disrupt the usual legislative process. In the House of Commons we did our job, but given the shocking example of the amendments tabled in the House of Lords, the same simply cannot be said of the other place.

One peer spoke for four hours and 41 minutes. That is longer than “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” extended edition—a great film, but not the most succinct piece of cinema. I say that not to be disrespectful to the other place, but to ask a simple question: was that responsible behaviour and were Members there fairly and professionally carrying out their role as the second Chamber? I think not.

Then there is the cost. The Lords debate on the Bill cost the taxpayer over £1.7 million in attendance allowances—public money spent so that a Bill could go nowhere. The public have every right to expect good value from their institutions because we work for them. I do not think that anyone can say with a clear conscience that that was a good use of taxpayers’ money.

We also have to look at the make-up of the Chamber: 26 bishops sit in the House of Lords. I have no problem with religion per se, but nobody elected them. They sit solely because of the position they hold. The only other country in the world that gives clerics seats in its legislature in that way is Iran. In a modern, multi-faith, increasingly secular society, is that fit for purpose? We need a second Chamber that supports and challenges.

[Andrew Rosindell]

Is the hon. Lady also calling for the disestablishment of the Church of England? Is she asking that the cross be taken off the Crown so that the Christian foundations of this country are no longer part of our constitutional arrangements?

[Kim Leadbeater]

If I may say so, it is quite a leap of faith to go from the comments I was making about the unelected Chamber to the Church of England, for which I have the utmost respect. I have worked with many people of faith on an agenda around cohesion and the need to bring our communities together—something that I am sure the hon. Member would fully support.

In a multi-faith and increasingly secular society, is it right to have unelected faith leaders in our second Chamber? The Prime Minister himself said:

“I don’t think we can justify half of our national legislature being unelected. I think this is something that is, in many ways, quite scandalous… If you want to cut the cost of politics, that’s the first place to look.”

He has also spoken about his desire to rewire how power works in this country, but we surely cannot do that without looking at the role of the House of Lords. I agree with the Prime Minister and I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud: we need a national commission into the future of the House of Lords. I am pleased to speak in support of that today.

17:02

[Dr Ellie Chowns (North Herefordshire) (Green)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir John. I thank the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this important debate.

I represent the Green party. For many years, we have supported the abolition of the House of Lords and its replacement by a fully elected second Chamber. I am personally fairly agnostic about the exact format of how that should be done, but I fundamentally believe that a basic principle of democracy is that the legitimacy of the lawmakers comes from the trust put in them. I am talking about the authority entrusted in the legislature by the people, the voters—not by the people in charge of a political party who draw up a list from time to time, some of which is clearly related to the amount of money donated for years by some of the people who end up in the other place. It is not even through the legitimacy that an individual achieves within their specialised field of expertise because of many long years of practice in that field.

We should absolutely as a Parliament draw on expertise from across the full panoply of sectors in our country, but we need to ask ourselves who should be making the laws. It should be people who work on the basis of the trust given them by the voters, by the people, and on the basis of every vote having equal weight. That is why I am equally passionate about the importance of a proportionally elected Parliament. Fundamentally, we have a system in the House of Lords that is undemocratic and hugely unrepresentative in all sorts of dimensions and areas of demographics. It is untransparent because so much of the decision making about who becomes a Member is done behind closed doors. How can that be suitable for the 21st century? We have a huge problem with not only the composition but the functioning of the House of Lords.

It is, of course, important that legislation is properly scrutinised and that there are full opportunities to amend it. We have questions to ask ourselves in the Commons about how well we do those things and how well our system enables us to, but we do not fix them with an institution such as the House of Lords—no matter how effective individual Members of the Lords may be. Like colleagues here, I pay tribute to the work of so many Members of the Lords who take their role seriously, bring expertise and pay attention to the job that they are there to do. However, as the hon. Member for Stroud has pointed out, there has been a huge failure in the functioning of the House of Lords because, effectively, the will of a few of its Members has overridden the will of the House of Commons. That cannot be right, so we desperately need reform.

I welcome the proposal from the hon. Member for Stroud of a national commission on reform of the House of Lords. To address a point raised by the Opposition spokesperson, the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), I should say that I would strongly favour the inclusion of a citizen’s assembly as part of that process. I fundamentally believe that a representative sample of the British people, representing all demographics and engaging in the detail and questioning of how we construct our political system, so that the people’s voice is heard, must be a fundamental part of any reform process. We cannot continue as we are—with an undemocratic, unrepresentative, untransparent second Chamber. We must have reform.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

Order. We have time for only one more Back Bencher from the Government side.

17:06

[John Slinger (Rugby) (Lab)]

Thank you, Sir John; it is a pleasure to serve under your chairship. I praise my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing this debate.

I am glad that our new Prime Minister has referred to the importance of rewiring the state. We should absolutely rewire this place, and I offer a solution. I, too, have my doubts about an elected upper Chamber, for reasons that hon. Members have already rehearsed. I think we can preserve the best elements of the other place and also improve on its deficiencies. The best elements are obviously its expertise and its ability to scrutinise and revise—although I must note that the behaviour of a minority of peers during the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill was absolutely shameful. The deficiencies are its patchy expertise, an opaque selection process, a lack of legitimacy and democracy, and its unrepresentative nature when it comes to demography, geography and ethnicity.

I would rename the other place and call it a senate. Fifty per cent. of its Members would be experts, the other 50% being citizen senators—a point already made by the hon. Members for St Ives (Andrew George) and for North Herefordshire (Dr Chowns). The House of Lords Appointments Commission does a good job in difficult circumstances, but we need a more transparent and open system. I would recommend that experts are appointed from across the range of sectors in our society and given a limited 10-year tenure in office. If the President of the United States can get a lot done in eight years then I am sure that expert senators would be able to do a lot in 10.

The more interesting half of the upper Chamber, as I am envisioning it, would be citizen senators. They should be selected by sortition, which is a form of democracy. They would serve under the same principles as juries: they forgo their political and other biases and serve in the national interest to scrutinise legislation that comes to them from the elected Chamber, which must have primacy.

Let us rewire this place, starting with the other place. Let us inject more expertise, fairly and transparently appointed, and bring people into the heart of this Parliament through a system of citizen senators to improve, not block, legislation, through the lens of national, not party, interest.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

I call Kit Malthouse. Kit, I can give you a minute if you want.

[Kit Malthouse (North West Hampshire) (Con)]

indicated dissent.

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

In that case, I call the Liberal Democrat spokesman, Lisa Smart.

17:10

[Lisa Smart (Hazel Grove) (LD)]

Thank you, Sir John. It is a pleasure to serve with you in the Chair. I warmly congratulate the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) both on the way he opened this debate and on how he chairs the all-party parliamentary group on House of Lords reform.

The Liberal Democrats have called for a democratic second Chamber for decades. We simply believe that those who make the law should, at some point, be accountable to those who have to obey it. In the other place, that link does not exist. People across the country understand that; they see a Chamber filled by prime ministerial appointment, where a seat in our legislature can follow years of party loyalty or a generous donation. That system ingrains patronage. It feeds the sense that politics is run by and for a small elite and it is one of the reasons why so many people have lost faith in our democratic institutions.

In her excellent speech earlier, the hon. Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) mentioned the Lords Spiritual—the 26 Church of England bishops who take their seats in the other place. It is not an excessive understatement to say that that arrangement feels a bit outdated. Britain today is a country of many faiths and none, and nobody should have a hand in making our laws simply because of the religious office they hold. It is surely long past time to modernise.

Peers may also be appointed because they are seen to be experts within a field. However, as there is currently no time limit on how long they sit within the Lords, someone could indeed have been an expert in something 40 years ago, but the field has moved on vastly. Yet they still legislate in that area and are viewed as a specialist.

Some say that this issue is not a priority; it does not come up often on the doorstep. But a quick look at my inbox shows that some of my Hazel Grove constituents do indeed care about it enough to contact their MP. I have had constituents write to me about this, including most recently Kellie from Offerton, who argued powerfully that we should have an elected second Chamber. I agree with her.

The Lib Dems supported the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. Nobody can seriously defend a place in Parliament being handed down through a family line.

[Andrew Rosindell]

On that basis, would the hon. Lady abolish Royal Assent for Bills? Does she accept that our constitution is the King in Parliament—the King, the House of Lords and the House of Commons? Is she actually arguing for the abolition of the monarchy?

[Lisa Smart]

The hon. Gentleman has extended himself several times this afternoon—and I, for one, am here for it. There are many things I would change about the way our country runs. If we were designing a country from scratch, I do not think we would have a Parliament or a monarchy like this. The monarch and the royal family do an important job in all sorts of ways, but I would very much change the relationship between Parliament and the monarch. To answer his question, yes I would.

Removing the remaining hereditary peers on its own does not go anywhere near far enough. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) tabled an amendment to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to replace every unelected Member with a fully elected Chamber. Sadly, neither the Labour nor Conservative party supported that, which feels like a missed opportunity to begin the transition. We continue to see events that highlight why we should have an elected and accountable second Chamber. The Mandelson scandal has shown how poorly the current Chamber copes when a Member appointed for life has lost the public’s trust.

According to an Electoral Commission study from 2025, only 14% of respondents trusted politicians. We must all work to improve that level of trust; increasing accountability in Parliament feels like an important place to start. In February, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey), called for legislation to strip Peter Mandelson of his peerage. Ministers told the public that reform was urgent and that they were talking to other parties. The Removal of Peerages Bill was included in the last King’s Speech, yet we are still to see any wide-scale reform. Can the Minister confirm if, and when, we should expect to see legislation to produce reform in the House of Lords—including, but not limited to, the Removal of Peerages Bill?

The Representation of the People Bill could have been a good place to start to make vital reforms to the way the second Chamber works. It contains welcome measures including votes at 16, steps towards automatic voter registration and a U-turn on the independence of the Electoral Commission—all changes that the Lib Dems have campaigned for. But it says nothing about the Lords or proportional representation, and far too little about the money that flows into our politics.

We want the Government to stop tinkering at the margins and to make the real changes needed to fix the broken political system in which we currently operate. They could take steps now: implement the 2017 Burns report; bring the House of Lords down to 600 Members; introduce the retirement age for peers that Labour promised in its own 2024 manifesto; put the ministerial code into law so that Ministers—

[Gareth Snell (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Sir John Hayes (in the Chair)]

Order. The hon. Lady should wind up after this intervention.

[Gareth Snell]

I should declare an interest: my wife is the Deputy Government Chief Whip in the House of Lords. As the hon. Lady will know, the Taylor report is bringing in mandatory House of Lords retirement at age 80, so things are progressing.

[Lisa Smart]

I look forward to seeing that happen at pace; I am sure that is what is going on.

The Government could also move at pace to move power out of Westminster and Whitehall. But none of the steps I just mentioned is a substitute for the end goal. Our second Chamber needs the legitimacy that only a democratic mandate can give it. The Lib Dems will keep making that case until it has been won.

17:15

[Mike Wood (Kingswinford and South Staffordshire) (Con)]

The question of House of Lords reform is obviously not new; successive Administrations of all political colours have grappled with it for decades—indeed, for more than a century. They have discovered that constitutional upheaval tends to be far easier to promise in opposition than to deliver successfully in government.

The history reminds us of a fundamental truth: constitutional reform must always be approached with care, caution, balance and a clear understanding of the consequences. We would all agree that the House of Lords is far from perfect—certainly, no one from the official Opposition would suggest otherwise—but it performs a vital constitutional function. It provides thorough legislative scrutiny, brings into Parliament unmatched expertise from the law, science, business and public service, and holds Ministers to account.

Crucially, the House of Lords serves as a vital check on the Executive, ensuring that legislation is properly stress tested and challenging Governments when they get things wrong. Having been a member of the Government Whips Office before the last election, I can say that that is not always convenient for Governments, but it is a core constitutional function. Any sensible reform must preserve and enhance that scrutiny, and never dismantle it purely for political convenience or advantage. That is where we have serious concerns about the Government’s approach.

As has been said, in its 2024 manifesto Labour declared that the House of Lords was too large and promised to reduce its numbers; since then, the Government’s actions have told a rather different story. Even after expelling the hereditary peers, the House of Lords has about 800 Members—more than when the Government first declared that it was bloated. Apparently, the second Chamber is too big unless Downing Street happens to be the one packing the red Benches. I hope the Minister can explain that contradiction. Appointments must reflect the expertise that Parliament requires, not serve as a patronage machine to manufacture a compliant legislature.

There is then the Government’s more radical proposition: abolishing the Lords entirely in favour of an elected senate of the nations and regions. But ambition is no substitute for detail. What powers would such a body possess? How would it be elected? Critically, how would it relate to the democratically elected House of Commons? Those are not minor procedural queries. The fact that the hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Opher), the mover of the motion, seems to answer the question by saying that an unelected panel should decide highlights the fact that Labour had no idea what the radical Lords reform in its manifesto meant and had no plan to deliver it.

If an elected second Chamber can claim equal democratic legitimacy, we invite constitutional gridlock, competing mandates and perpetual legislative paralysis. Our parliamentary system works precisely because it respects the primacy of this elected House, and has done for a century and more, while giving the revising Chamber the freedom to scrutinise. We should not discard that balance for an untested experiment. When will the Minister launch the proposed public consultation? Or are the Government expecting Parliament to sign a blank cheque on Lords reform?

Let me turn to immediate measures. The Opposition engaged constructively with the House of Lords Retirement and Participation Committee. We agree that peers must actively contribute; however, we hold grave reservations about an arbitrary retirement age of 80. The distinct value of the other place lies in wisdom, institutional memory and lifetime service, so we should assess peers on the quality of their contribution, not the date on their birth certificate. Sensible reform is possible, just as previous Conservative Governments enabled voluntary retirement and expulsions for misconduct. We are ready to discuss appointments, size and standards, but the constitution belongs not to the Government of the day but to our nation.

[Andrew Rosindell]

On the question of appointments, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is only right that the third largest party in this country should have some representation in the House of Lords today?

[Mike Wood]

It is beyond me to decide who should and should not be in the House of Lords any time soon, but I note that last month the hon. Gentleman’s party leader was talking about flooding the House of Lords with hundreds of new Reform peers, and he said that if that did not work to get Reform’s legislative agenda through, he would have a referendum on abolishing the House of Lords. Reform’s position seems a little confused.

The second Chamber exists not to make life comfortable for Ministers but to hold power to account. The test of any reform is not whether it delivers a pliant Parliament, but whether it serves the British people. That is the test against which His Majesty’s Opposition will hold the Government to account.

17:21

[The Parliamentary Secretary, Cabinet Office (Mark Ferguson)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Sir John. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud (Dr Opher) for securing the debate, and I thank Members for their contributions to what has been, unsurprisingly, an interesting and enlightening discussion.

Before I respond to some of the specific questions raised, I will first set out the Government’s approach to reforming the House of Lords. The Government have a number of manifesto commitments in this space and are approaching reform of the second Chamber in stages. The first stage is already complete: in the previous Session, Parliament passed legislation to remove the right of the remaining hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. This important and historic step means that no peer can now be a Member of the House of Lords solely on the basis of birthright.

We are currently in the second stage, and are focused on implementing our manifesto commitments on a retirement age and a participation requirement, which I know Members from all parties are concerned about. For a long time there has been general agreement in both Houses that the second Chamber is too big. However, if we ask more Members of that Chamber to depart by introducing a retirement age, new talent will be required, and new people will need time to learn how to develop expertise and fulfil their duties effectively as Members of the other place.

[Kit Malthouse]

Does the Minister agree that more important than the number of people or how often they attend that House is that it has become clear that individual peers are much more powerful than individual elected Members of Parliament? They have greater privileges and less transparency, and are able to influence legislation to a much greater degree than we are in this elected House. That is fundamentally what lies at the heart of the problem. We can indulge ourselves with tweaks around the edges, as all Governments have done, but in the end, unless we address that fundamental problem, the dissatisfaction will continue.

[Mark Ferguson]

I know the right hon. Gentleman has strong views on this issue, and I am glad he has had an opportunity to contribute to the debate. I am sure he will continue to contribute. I take his point, but I do not entirely agree. I think the primacy of the House of Commons and of MPs is incredibly important, and I feel that view will, unsurprisingly, be shared in a room full of Members of the House of Commons.

Our manifesto commitments on a retirement age and a participation requirement will have a direct impact on Members of the other place; therefore, during the passage of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026, the Leader of the House of Lords proposed to establish a dedicated Select Committee, to provide the opportunity for the second Chamber to shape how further reforms are delivered. The Retirement and Participation Committee published its report in July, and it was debated in the other place in September. The report was genuinely House-led, with over 100 Members submitting evidence to the Committee. The Government are carefully considering the Committee’s recommendations and will respond substantively later this year. I know that if Members are here for this debate, they will look out for that response.

The historical context of House of Lords reform tells us that an incremental approach is often quite effective. Throughout the 20th century there were various attempts to fully reform the second Chamber. Some passed, but some failed. Of course, there were the Parliament Acts of 1911 and of 1949, but there were also decades of stagnation and stalled attempts. The previous Labour Government managed to introduce the House of Lords Act 1999, reducing the number of hereditary peers from around 700 to 92.

In the 21st century, a royal commission and joint Committee of both Houses were established, alongside the publication of numerous White Papers during the Blair and Brown years. The coalition Government introduced a Bill that was voted down in the House of Commons. None of those attempts were able to bring about lasting reform to the second Chamber.

However, during that time it was possible to pass reforms on expulsion, attendance and resignation that held cross-party consensus. That is why the Government are focused on conducting a staged approach to House of Lords reform. We are focused on delivering outcomes and keeping promises. Rather than attempting to reform the whole House in a single go, our strategy is to implement important initial reforms that meet our objective of having a smaller second Chamber that better represents the country it serves.

The third stage of reform, which has taken up a large proportion of this debate—I will return to some specific points—focuses on the manifesto commitment to consult on proposals to replace the Lords with an alternative second Chamber. The Government recognise that previous public consultations and attempts to reform that House did not bring about lasting change. Nevertheless, the Government want to see a second Chamber that better represents the nations and regions—something I am personally very interested in—and I know that hon. Members share that vision. There are many ways of achieving that goal, and we owe it to the public to get the consultation right.

Let me address some of the specific points made by individual Members. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stroud, who referenced the abolition of the House of Lords in 1649. A lot of things happened in 1649, some of which we may not wish to repeat.

It was also enjoyable—and entertaining in a different way—to hear from the hon. Member for Romford (Andrew Rosindell). I was surprised to hear him say that he wants continuity, given that there has not even been continuity in the party he has represented within this Parliament. I think this country needs to change and I believe that, in his own way, he believes the country needs to change, too—otherwise his recent change of party is somewhat surprising. I enjoyed hearing him dabble in unicameralism; I was not necessarily expecting that point, which was often championed in this place by the former Labour Member Mike Gapes, a proud unicameralist. There are not many of them in the House, so it was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Romford make that point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bolton West (Phil Brickell) made a point, among many others, about the size and composition of the Lords. The Government believe that all peers should make an active contribution to the House of Lords. There is a general, albeit not universal, consensus that the second Chamber is too big. In addressing that, we should recognise that the pace of change in every field is increasing, which means we need new talent with up-to-date experience. The introduction of a participation requirement and a retirement age sit at the heart of this work. As the Leader of the House has said, we believe the second Chamber works best when it is full time with part-time Members.

My hon. Friend will get a lot of sympathy on the Government Benches for his point, which I will return to in a moment, about the number of representatives from the nations and regions. HOLAC is independent, and vetting for propriety includes checks with Government Departments, agencies and other organisations, including the Electoral Commission. It plays a vital role in vetting all peers and nominating Cross Benchers to the Lords.

My hon. Friend the Member for Spen Valley (Kim Leadbeater) spoke passionately about the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill, and I know her frustrations on that matter. It is obviously a sensitive and delicate subject matter that should be dealt with seriously. The Government were and remain neutral on that specific Bill and the issue of assisted dying, and it was up to the other place to determine how that Bill was scrutinised, as with other legislation.

I enjoyed the reference to Kellie from the hon. Member for Hazel Grove (Lisa Smart), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson—although I always warn against weighing the mailbag to find out how important an issue is, as I am sure all Members would agree. I was interested to hear the Lib Dem position with regard to the monarch. That said, the loss of trust in politics comes, alas, at least as much from the Commons as from the Lords. It is unacceptable that disgraced peers can retain their peerages regardless of circumstances. Legislation to enable peerages to be removed was included in the King’s Speech. The Government will announce further details in due course.

The shadow Minister, the hon. Member for Kingswinford and South Staffordshire (Mike Wood), talked about care, caution and balance; I am disappointed that was not the position the Conservatives took with regard to the abolition of the hereditary principle. I once again thank right hon. and hon. Members for this thought-provoking debate on the second Chamber.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered House of Lords reform.

17:30

Sitting adjourned.