Life Peers, Hereditary Peers, Bishops, the 1999 Act, the 2024 Act, and the Second Chamber That Has Been Under Reform Since Approximately the Edwardian Period
The Reform That Is Always a First Stage
The House of Lords has been in the first stage of a two-stage reform since 1999. This is not a misprint. The House of Lords Act 1999 — which removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords, reducing their number from approximately 750 to 92 — was explicitly described at the time as Stage One of a reform process. Stage Two would follow. Stage Two has been approaching for twenty-five years. Stage Two may finally be arriving in 2025, when the Labour government’s legislation to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers completes its parliamentary passage. This would complete Stage One. Stage Two — the replacement of the appointed chamber with something that has democratic legitimacy — is, at time of writing, subject to further consultation.
The trajectory of Lords reform over the last century is a study in the gap between political will and political action. The Parliament Act 1911 — which reduced the Lords’ veto to a one-year delay on non-money bills — was accompanied by a preamble committing to a future reform of the Lords’ composition to give it democratic legitimacy. One hundred and fourteen years later, that commitment has produced the Life Peerages Act 1958 (creating life peers), the House of Lords Act 1999 (removing most hereditary peers), and legislation pending for the remainder. The democratic legitimacy promised in 1911 is still pending. The British constitution’s attitude toward time is notably relaxed.
The Composition After the Hereditary Peers: What Remains
When the remaining 92 hereditary peers are removed, the Lords will consist of: approximately 650-700 life peers appointed on political nominations or by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission; 26 Lords Spiritual (Church of England bishops); and the crossbench peers who take no party whip. The resulting chamber will be entirely appointed, with life peers distributed broadly in proportion to the political nominations of successive Prime Ministers — meaning that the Lords’ composition reflects the accumulated patronage decisions of every government back to 1958.
This produces a chamber in which the current government does not have a majority, because no government since 1999 has appointed enough life peers to establish one — a feature that is either a democratic safeguard (no single government dominates the revising chamber) or a structural bias toward whichever government was in power for the longest recent period (which has been the Conservative government, which appointed the most peers). The Lords’ political balance — substantially Conservative, with a significant Labour contingent, a sizeable Liberal Democrat group, and the crossbenchers — reflects historical appointment patterns more than current electoral reality, which is constitutionally awkward and practically functional.
The Case for an Elected Lords: Compelling, Perennial, and Blocked by the Commons
The argument for a fully or partially elected Lords is straightforward: democratic legitimacy requires elected representatives; an appointed chamber lacks that legitimacy regardless of its technical performance; and the constitutional principle of parliamentary sovereignty is undermined when one of the two parliamentary chambers is not democratically accountable. The UCL Constitution Unit, the Electoral Reform Society, and a significant body of constitutional scholarship support some form of elected Lords.
The argument fails in Parliament for a specific reason: a directly elected second chamber would have a democratic mandate to challenge the Commons, and MPs who have worked hard to get elected to the Commons are understandably reluctant to create an equally elected rival chamber that could use its mandate to block or significantly amend their legislation. The 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill — introduced by Nick Clegg under the coalition agreement — was defeated in the Commons partly by Conservative backbench opposition and partly by the implicit Commons consensus that an elected Lords would be a problem for whoever was in government at the time of the next disagreement. It died in committee. The principle of an elected Lords survived.
Abolition, Appointment, or Election: The Options the Government Will Not Choose Between
The three substantive reform options — abolition (leaving a unicameral Parliament), a fully appointed chamber with stronger independence, or a fully or partly elected chamber — each have genuine political support and genuine political obstacles. Abolition removes useful scrutiny without providing an alternative. A stronger appointed chamber raises the question of who appoints and on what basis — the current system being the accumulated product of Prime Ministerial patronage, which is not a particularly principled selection mechanism. An elected chamber creates the Commons-rival problem. The option that resolves all three objections simultaneously does not exist, which is why each government in turn has committed to a review and the review has committed to further consultation.
The Lords reform story is the British constitutional condition in its purest expression: a change that virtually everyone agrees is necessary, that the people empowered to make it have consistent reasons to defer, and that arrives in increments small enough to be technically significant and practically insufficient. The removal of hereditary peers will complete Stage One, twenty-five years late. Stage Two will be announced in due course.
Auf Wiedersehen, amigo!
The House of Lords Act 1999 removed most hereditary peers, reducing them from approximately 750 to 92 pending further reform. The Labour government’s 2024-25 legislation removes the remaining 92, completing the 1999 Act’s stated first stage. The resulting chamber will be entirely appointed, comprising approximately 650-700 life peers, 26 Lords Spiritual, and crossbenchers. The 2012 House of Lords Reform Bill, introduced by Nick Clegg, was defeated in the Commons. The Parliament Act 1911 committed to a future democratic reform of Lords composition; that commitment has not been fulfilled. The House of Lords Appointments Commission vets nominees for propriety but cannot block Prime Ministerial nominations. Lords reform options include abolition, stronger appointment, or election; each faces specific political obstacles that have prevented resolution.
Alan Nafzger was born in Lubbock, Texas, the son Swiss immigrants. He grew up on a dairy in Windthorst, north central Texas. He earned degrees from Midwestern State University (B.A. 1985) and Texas State University (M.A. 1987). University College Dublin (Ph.D. 1991). Dr. Nafzger has entertained and educated young people in Texas colleges for 37 years. Nafzger is best known for his dark novels and experimental screenwriting. His best know scripts to date are Lenin’s Body, produced in Russia by A-Media and Sea and Sky produced in The Philippines in the Tagalog language. In 1986, Nafzger wrote the iconic feminist western novel, Gina of Quitaque. He currently lives in Holloway, North London. Contact: [email protected]
The thing about British institutions is they run on three things: tea, precedent, and the collective promise to never acknowledge the madness. This violates that promise.
Peter Cook would have recognized this as the natural conclusion of everything he warned about. He’d have had several more drinks and possibly another liver.
My mum said this is the funniest thing she’s read in years and she was sad the whole time.