The House of Lords: Sounding the death knell on a tradition?

The Earl of Derby and Earl Grey, whose reforms finally gave ordinary people the vote. The Duke of Wellington, who opened the door to Catholics standing from parliament.

For seven centuries, some of Britain's greatest statesmen have been drawn from the House of Lords, having assumed their roles by means of hereditary peerage.

But if a Shropshire peer gets his way, the days of hereditary lords voting on parliamentary matters could very soon be numbered.

Baron Grocott, who as plain Bruce Grocott served as MP for Lichfield and Tamworth, The Wrekin and finally Telford in a career spanning 27 years, has tabled a Bill which could effectively sound the death knell for hereditary peers voting in the House of Lords.

Lord Grocott's House of Lords (Hereditary Peers Abolition of Voting Rights) Bill sounds about as arcane as they come. And in a news agenda dominated by Brexit and the stand-off with Russia over the Sergei Skripal affair, it is perhaps unsurprising that it has struggled to attract much in the way of media attention. But if successful, the bill will have a profound impact on the way Britain is governed.

Prior to 1999, hereditary peers made up the majority of members of the House of Lords, holding 747 of the 1,330 seats. But after being frustrated by opposition from the Lords over changes to the electoral procedures in the EU elections, Tony Blair's government acted to strip all but 92 hereditary peers of their voting rights.

Under the new system, the hereditary lords would instead be invited to elect 92 members from their number to represent them in the lords. Instead of being the majority in the House of Lords, for the first time they would now comfortably be outvoted by the 578 life peers, the majority of whom were political appointments.

The 1999 reforms were opposed by the Conservative leader of the time, William Hague, who accused then prime minister Mr Blair of creating a "House of Cronies". When it emerged that the prime minister had, in fact, done a deal with the Conservatives' leader in the Lords, Viscount Cranbourne, the latter was sacked from his front-bench role.

But the latest measures, proposed by Lord Grocott, who served as Mr Blair's private secretary at the time of the 1999 reforms, take matters a step further, and will eventually end the 700-year tradition of hereditary peers voting in Parliament.

Under the present constitution, if an hereditary peer dies, retires, or is expelled from the House, a by-election takes place, and another hereditary peer is elected to take their place. But under Lord Grocott's proposed reform, these by-elections will no longer take place, and the hereditary peers will not be replaced.

Lord Grocott quotes the by-election to replace the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Avebury, following his death in 2016, as an example of the archaic process.

"We have had elections where there have been seven candidates, and only three people attended to vote," he says. "My feeling is the overwhelming majority in this house, including the majority of hereditary peers, support this."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, his proposals have the backing of the Electoral Reform Society, which has called for the House of Lords to be scrapped in its entirety.

The society's senior director Willie Sullivan, does not mince his words:

"The House of Lords in its entirety is an affront to democracy, with the public currently having no say over who fills its famous red benches," he says.

"Continued presence of hereditary peers is frankly beyond the pale. All but one of them are men who owe their peerage to the family into which they were born, rather than to a truly democratic vote. Time and time again voters are astonished that this absurd situation is allowed to continue."

Lord Grocott accuses a small number of peers of attempting to wreck the Bill by wasting time with numerous amendments. A debate on Friday was adjourned after once more running out of parliamentary time.

However, one of the bill’s most outspoken critics, Lord Caithness of Clashfern argues that it contradicts the Burns Report on reform to the Lords, which was published last year.

Lord Burns, a cross-bench life peer and retired civil servant, recommended reducing the number of peers to 600, introducing 15-year maximum terms, and ensuring the political composition reflects the result of the most recent general election. But crucially he said the existing arrangement of retaining 92 life peers should be retained.

Lord Trethgarne and Lord Caithness have argued that it would wrong to propose further reform until Lord Burns’ recommendations have been implemented in full.

Lord Cormack, the former South Staffordshire MP, points out that life peers – of whom he is one – are not a result of the democratic process either.

“Life peers are appointed by the whim of our party leaders,” he says.

“That doesn’t seem a very subjective basis to decide who should be put in this house, how well you get on with the leader of your party.”

Feelings are high on both sides of the debate. We must wait and see whether time is up for hereditary peers in our parliamentary system.