House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill: motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 1

Parliament voted on 4 September 2025 to reject a House of Lords amendment that would have phased out hereditary peers gradually rather than removing them all at once. The motion to disagree with Lords Amendment 1 passed by 336 votes to 77. The effect is that the bill retains its original form: all remaining hereditary peers lose the right to sit and vote in the Lords immediately, rather than through a slower process of attrition as the Lords had proposed. The vote advances the government's goal of removing the 91 hereditary peers who have sat in the Lords since a 1999 compromise preserved a small number when more than 660 others were excluded. Lords Amendment 1 would have ended the by-elections through which hereditary peers replace one another, allowing their numbers to reduce to zero over time rather than through immediate exclusion. Supporters of the bill argued that the youngest sitting hereditary peer is 39, meaning a gradual approach could delay completion of reform by more than 50 years. Opponents preferred that gradualist route, or argued the reform should not proceed without a broader package of constitutional change. Labour MPs voted unanimously in favour, joined by the Liberal Democrats, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, and the Greens. All 74 Conservatives who voted went into the No lobby, joined by both Reform UK MPs who voted and one independent. The division on Amendment 1 was closely mirrored by two other divisions the same day on Lords Amendments 2 and 3, which also passed by similar margins. Ministers framed Conservative opposition as an attempt to protect hereditary privilege, while critics of the bill argued Labour had broken a compact made in the late 1990s to link the removal of hereditary peers to wider Lords reform.