House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill: Reasoned Amendment to Second Reading

What happened: On 15 October 2024, the House of Commons voted on a Conservative reasoned amendment (a procedural device to block a bill at its second reading by stating objections to it) to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill. The amendment would have prevented the bill from progressing by refusing it a second reading. It was defeated by 453 votes to 105, allowing the bill to continue through Parliament.

Why it matters: The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill seeks to remove the remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords, ending a presence that dates back centuries. Around 92 hereditary peers currently sit in the Lords following a partial reform in 1999, retained as a compromise at the time. If the bill becomes law, membership of the upper chamber will no longer be available by right of birth, affecting those individuals directly and reshaping the composition of Parliament's revising chamber. The defeated amendment would have halted this process entirely.

The politics: The vote divided sharply along party lines. All 100 Conservative MPs who voted opposed the bill, joined by all 5 Reform UK MPs who voted and 2 independents, forming the 105 Ayes. Labour, the Liberal Democrats, Labour and Co-operative, Plaid Cymru, the Greens, the SDLP, and Traditional Unionist Voice all voted No, producing the 453-strong majority. There were no Conservative votes in favour and no Labour or Liberal Democrat votes against, making this an unusually clean partisan divide with no notable cross-party rebels on either side. The bill subsequently proceeded to committee stage, where further Conservative amendments were defeated in November 2024 by similarly large margins.