House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill

Ashley Fox Excerpts

Consideration of Lords amendments
Thursday 4th September 2025 Commons Chamber

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Whether we go back to 1924 or even further back—and I will during my speech—we find Conservatives in this House protecting their friends born into positions of power. This Bill will finally remove such an archaic right. Just as the hon. Member for Clacton (Nigel Farage) —he is overseas at the moment, I understand—wants to send people, certainly in Wales, back down the coalmines, the Leader of the Opposition is stuck in the politics of the past.

Before I turn to the amendments sent back from the other place, I want to draw attention to comments made by the noble Lord Strathclyde. He said of this Bill that

“inevitably, there will be repercussions. They”—

the Government—

“are storing up huge problems for themselves.”

The Conservatives have not only complained that the Government are removing hereditary peers while offering “nothing in return”; more sinisterly, they have threatened to use delaying tactics on this Government’s agenda. We only have to look at their behaviour in debates in the upper House, to see that they have been trying to hold the Government hostage on the Football Governance Bill, the Employment Rights Bill and the Renters’ Rights Bill—all to protect the hereditary principle. We know that the Conservative party is in no fit state to take action on very much, but where is their energy being directed at present? It is being directed at the self-preservation of hereditary peers in the House of Lords. That is unacceptable and, frankly, it deserves to be highlighted.

As I say, the Bill has returned to the House amended by the other place. Most of the amendments serve to undermine the core purpose of the Bill, or go well beyond the Bill’s intended remit. Lords amendment 1 has to be read with its consequential amendment—Lords amendment 8. It seeks to end the system of hereditary peer by-elections while retaining the current cohort of hereditary peers. The Government cannot endorse those amendments, which fundamentally undermine the core purpose of the Bill. The Government have a manifesto commitment to bring about an immediate reform by removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. Lords amendment 1 would allow existing hereditary peers, the youngest of whom is 39, to remain in the other place for decades to come. That therefore blocks an immediate reform.

[Sir Ashley Fox (Bridgwater) (Con)]

The Minister will be aware that the reason hereditaries still sit in the House of Lords was the deal done in 1999. The promise made by the then Labour Government was that hereditaries would remain until the House of Lords was properly reformed. The Minister is aware that he is removing the hereditaries but giving no assurance about when full reform of the House of Lords will take place. What assurance can he give this Chamber about when the Government will make proper proposals to reform the upper Chamber?

[Nick Thomas-Symonds]

As the Leader of the House of Lords has set out in the other place, immediately this Bill is on the statute book a Select Committee will be created to look at those issues of retirement and participation. The hon. Gentleman is talking about politics as they stood in 1999. This Government were elected on a manifesto that delivered 411 MPs in 2024, and this Government are following that manifesto.

Across both this House and the other place, there has been broad consensus that the hereditary route to the House of Lords should end. I also make it clear, as Ministers have from this Dispatch Box and Labour peers have in the other place, that this is not a judgment on individuals. It is not a judgment on the work and contribution of individual hereditary peers; it is a judgment on the principle. Let me also say that there is no barrier to any hereditary peers—in the case of the Conservative party, through a party list—being nominated as life peers, should the Leader of the Opposition, for example, wish to do that.