House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill Committee: Amendment 25

What happened: The House of Commons voted on Amendment 25 to the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill during its Committee Stage on 12 November 2024. The amendment, which sought to modify or delay the removal of hereditary peers from the House of Lords, was defeated by a substantial margin of 376 votes to 98.

Why it matters: The Bill aims to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers who have sat in the House of Lords under a compromise arrangement dating back to the House of Lords Act 1999. Defeating this amendment clears the path for the government to proceed with abolishing that arrangement without modification or delay. The change would affect the roughly 90 individuals currently sitting in the Lords by virtue of inherited title alone, and would alter the composition of the upper chamber by removing its last formal hereditary element.

The politics: The vote divided almost entirely along party lines. All 317 Labour MPs and all 35 Labour and Co-operative MPs voted against the amendment, alongside all SNP, Plaid Cymru, Green, and SDLP members. The 87 Conservative MPs present voted unanimously in favour, joined by all four Democratic Unionist Party members and all four Reform UK members, plus two independents. There were no Conservative votes against and no Labour votes in favour, making this one of the cleaner partisan divides of the Parliament so far. The Bill sits within a broader programme of Lords reform signalled by the Labour government, and media coverage has focused on whether further structural changes to the upper chamber might follow once the hereditary element is removed.