UK House of Lords expels hereditary peers in landmark reform

The UK House of Lords has expelled its hereditary peers, fulfilling a Labour Party manifesto pledge. King Charles III will open the new parliamentary session on May 13 with almost no members present who hold their seat by birthright. A transitional arrangement allows about two dozen hereditary peers to remain as life peers appointed by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

The Labour Party, which has held a majority in the House of Commons for nearly two years, expelled the 90 hereditary peers from the House of Lords, ending a system that had allowed aristocrats to sit in the chamber by virtue of inherited titles. The reform builds on Tony Blair's 1999 reform, which reduced hereditary peers from about 800 to 90 as part of a compromise.

Two holders of ancient court offices — the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain — lose voting rights but retain membership for ceremonial duties. The Earl Marshal role, responsible for organizing state ceremonies including the monarch's procession to the throne, has been held by the Duke of Norfolk family for 350 years. The Lord Great Chamberlain role, whose duties include dressing the king in his robe and crown before the state opening, is shared by the Cholmondeley, Ancaster, and Carrington families. Baron Rupert Carrington currently holds the Lord Great Chamberlain office.

Under the transitional arrangement, about two dozen hereditary peers will be reappointed as life peers by Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Two examples have already emerged: Earl Russell (Liberal Democrat), a photographer and environmental policy specialist, received a life peerage from Starmer after his party nominated him. Charles Hay, 16th Earl of Kinnoull (Crossbencher), who chairs the European Affairs Committee and sits on the House's vetting commission for new peers, also received a life peerage from Starmer.

Baroness Smith of Basildon, Labour leader in the Lords, acknowledged the need to retain the expertise of hereditary peers. "We recognize the argument from the opposition and the crossbenchers that we cannot abruptly lose the experience and expertise of the hereditary peers," she said during the final debate on the reform. "A certain number" — about two dozen — "will be able to continue their membership as newly appointed life peers," she added, noting that each party must decide internally who stays and who leaves.

Lord Hamilton of Epsom, a life peer, said hereditary peers will be "terribly missed." He described the House of Lords as "a unique part" of its composition because hereditary representatives had a place there. "Without them, only old bureaucrats remain — and political fortune-seekers, like me," he said.

The Earl of Devon, the 19th holder of the title, warned that the monarchy could be next to be abolished. "I am aware that I raise my voice as a representative of the unrepresentable," he said. He criticized efforts to retain a seat by converting the basis of membership, saying hereditary peers should be proud to have held a place "as the embodiment of the hereditary principle that has served our nation for more than a thousand years." The king, he said, loses "his longest-serving constitutional advisers" with the forced departure of the old aristocracy. "That leaves His Majesty quite alone at a time when our hereditary monarchy is already vulnerable," he added. "I really fear that his institution is the next one to be abolished, if one takes as a measure how we, his hereditary partners, have been treated."

Statistics show that hereditary peers attended sittings more frequently on average than life peers — those who hold non-heritable titles appointed by prime ministers, often for service in government, the military, arts, or science.