So. Farewell then to the last hereditary peers. Today marks the last day in parliament for most of the small rump who avoided Tony Blair’s purge in 1999. Ahead of the new King’s Speech next month, the end of this legislative session marks the end of hereditaries in the House of Lords: one of the few manifesto promises on which Keir Starmer has actually been able to deliver. Now we get to be governed by his nepo babies in the Commons…
At the River Room last night, the Lord Speaker Michael Forsyth hosted a farewell drink for peers. According to Politico, he told the outgoing aristos that their removal is a ‘profoundly important moment in the constitutional history of our nation’, arguing that hereditaries had brought independent thinking to the chamber. ‘To the hereditary peers who are here today, I would simply say this: your contribution to this House has mattered, and your contribution to the country continues,’ he added. Not for nothing do their ancient shields adorn the chamber, eh?
A handful of hereditaries though are expected to survive, as part of a last stay of execution. Some 25 are expected to receive ‘life peerages’ to ensure they carry on in the House until their death or retirement. Steerpike understands that 15 will be Conservatives, with Kemi Badenoch likely to opt for those who have demonstrated long service to the Tory party: Lord Strathclyde, the Earl of Courtown and Earl Howe are all expected to be among their number.
Others facing a conundrum are the crossbenchers, who currently have 29 hereditaries among their number. Their convenor, the Earl of Kinnoull, has graciously excused himself from the process to avoid any claims of a conflict of interest. The final list has gone through Acoba – the Cabinet Office vetting agency – and is waiting on No. 10 to make it public prior to the King’s Speech. Alas, given all the political crises, Downing Street has not chosen to publish the list – despite peers wondering which who among them will ‘survive the final cut’, in the words of one.
Ancient rights subsumed by the petty business of day-to-day politics? Truly, a fitting epitaph on their noble lordships’ final week in parliament….
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