Clearing Out the House of Lords
Is the move to end hereditary peerage in the House of Lords a step towards more democratic representation?
The government’s policy paper ‘Restoring Trust in Our Democracy’, published in July 2025, asserts that: ‘Over the centuries, stretching back to Magna Carta, men and women have struggled long and hard for the right to vote’. This howler is characteristic of official ignorance of history, particularly where Magna Carta is concerned. It is also symptomatic of a recent tendency to make grand statements about ‘our democracy’. The press release issued after the passing of the Hereditary Peers Bill this March proclaimed that it was ‘one of the biggest reforms to Parliament and UK democracy in a generation’. It did not state explicitly that the Act would remove the last vestige of ‘our aristocracy’, rather that ‘reform of this outdated and undemocratic principle has been long overdue’ – the ‘principle’ being that some hereditary peers were still entitled to sit in Parliament.
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