Doomed hereditary peers spy chance to stay in the Lords

The end is nigh for hereditary peers, whose inherited right to sit in the House of Lords is set to be stripped from them after the passage of a new law this week.

The 92 remaining hereditary seats will be scrapped when the current session of Parliament ends, which is expected to be in May.

But, for some, the end will be deferred after a compromise deal was struck that gives a select few a chance to board what one outgoing peer called the "hereditary lifeboat".

The Conservatives have been offered the opportunity to retain 15 of their hereditary members by converting them into life peers, allowing them to continue passing laws until they choose to retire.

Labour - which only has a handful of hereditary lords - has made the offer in return for the Conservatives agreeing to retire some of their existing life peers.

Some cross-bench hereditary peers - who are not affiliated with political parties - are expected to be saved too.

The prime minister has the ultimate say over who gets a seat in the Lords. But before it gets to that stage, there will be a process to decide which hereditary members are put forward for nominations to remain in the house as life peers.

The Tory leadership in the Lords will make recommendations to party leader Kemi Badenoch, who will have the final call.

Charles Courtenay, the Earl of Devon, will certainly not be among them.

"I don't think we should be using the hereditary privilege we have in the Lords to haggle or negotiate for life peerages," the earl said.

"I don't think it's appropriate."

Lord Courtenay entered the upper chamber in 2018 after inheriting his late father's title, which was first given to a distant ancestor in 1142, almost 900 years ago.

Though he had - as he put it - "defended the indefensible" by arguing against the removal of hereditary peers, the earl has accepted his fate and was not "unduly distressed by it".

"I'm quite conscious that if people think the hereditary principle is wrong and that's the decision of the country, then we shouldn't be using that to retain seats in the Lords for ourselves," the earl said.

He's prepared to embrace the chop, as several of his forebears - who were beheaded for treason - did in centuries past.

While he won't be able to sit and vote in the Lords anymore, he and other outgoing hereditaries will still get to keep their titles.

"The one thing you look at from the family history is we've been through a lot," Lord Courtenay said.

"There's nothing to be gained by fighting progress. We just have to crack on and move along."

Lord Bethell, a Conservative health minister during the Covid-19 pandemic, has also announced his intention to leave the upper house.

"I will not seek a place in the 'Hereditary Lifeboat', and instead am looking forward, with enthusiasm and energy, to leaving the life of a parliamentarian in a couple of weeks to pursue new adventures," Lord Bethell wrote in a LinkedIn post.

But in his absence, The Tories will not struggle to fill the survival raft.

One Lords source suggested Conservative hereditary members serving in shadow ministerial roles in the Lords would be the most likely candidates to be nominated for life peerages.

The hereditary peers on the Tory frontbench in the Lords include Viscount Camrose, Viscount Younger of Leckie, the Earl of Minto, Lord Keen of Elie, Earl Howe, the Earl of Courtown and the Earl of Effingham.

Lord Strathclyde, a former Tory leader of the Lords, has also been floated as a possible hereditary nominee.

Lord Salisbury, another hereditary peer and former Lords opposition leader who retired from the house in 2017, said "a lot of people are upset about leaving and I understand that, particularly when they've given many years of service".

"What I am pleased about is there will be a number of hereditary peers who will be given life peerages under a deal that has now been agreed with the present leader of the house," he told the BBC's Today in Parliament programme.

"So people on the Tory benches like Lord Howe and Lord Strathclyde I hope would be able to continue to make a remarkable contribution, both of whom are an integral part of the present house."

The BBC approached five Conservative hereditary peers and none were prepared to comment on the record.

One said matters were "acutely sensitive at the present time", while another described the situation as "a live issue".

In the Lords, there is a widely held view that some hereditary peers have been effective legislators, more so than some members appointed by way of political patronage.

In his statement marking the abolition of hereditary peers, the Lord Speaker thanked them for their service.

"Whatever views people may have of this constitutional change, it is sad to say goodbye to friends, who in many cases have contributed significantly to debate and scrutiny and to our institutional memory," Lord Forsyth of Drumlean said.

"Recognising their contribution is not about party politics but acknowledging the value of service and commitment, and I am proud to do so and to thank them."

But amongst MPs in the other place next door, and outside the Houses of Parliament, the idea of continuing to allow aristocrats seats by dint of birth is anathema to many.

It's also worth pointing out that in its 2024 election manifesto, Labour pledged to introduce legislation that would remove the right of all the remaining hereditary peers to "sit and vote in the House of Lords".

"There is no place in a modern democracy for people shaping our laws purely due to who their parents were," said Dr Jess Garland, director of policy and research for the Electoral Reform Society.

She said it was disappointing to see a number of hereditary peers returning to the Lords "by the back door".

"This comes after an aggressive campaign from unelected politicians in the Lords to delay and frustrate the bill, despite it being in the government's manifesto," she said.

"This will look farcical to the public, who will wonder why unelected peers have been able to force an elected government into watering down its clear manifesto pledge to remove the hereditary peers from Parliament."

In the hundreds of years the House of Lords has existed, its unelected hereditary members have become adept at surviving extinction-level events.

They bounced back from the 17th-century revolution, when the Lords was abolished by a law that declared it "useless and dangerous to the people of England".

They also outlasted former Prime Minister Sir Tony Blair, who described their presence in the Lords as an "anachronism" and got rid of more than 600 of them.

A compromise deal meant 92 were saved by Blair in 1999.

Now if the last remaining hereditary peers play their cards right, they could endure another Labour prime minister and delay their destiny to go the way of the dodo.