When a democratic tradition that has lasted for 800 years is brought to an end, you expect something of a fanfare, or at least an acknowledgement. But when the last hereditary peer walks out of the House of Lords in the next couple of weeks, it will be against a backdrop of insouciance and indifference – even apathy. This is a big moment for the Mother of Parliaments, but it will go largely unnoticed.
There are reasons for this. Set alongside global events, it hardly registers on the political Geiger counter. And also, it’s been a long time coming. In 1999, former prime minister Tony Blair’s government abolished all but 92 of the 750 members of the Lords who were there through birthright or clerical association, and it has taken 27 years for the remaining hereditary peers to be shown the second chamber’s Gothic, solid brass door.
Some will be given life peerages, but Labour’s Bill, passed in March, effectively seals the fate of the remaining Dukes and Duchesses, Earls and Countesses, and Barons and Baronesses who, through their birthright, were allowed to be part of our law-making process.
In a modern democracy, the idea of hereditary peers sitting in Parliament is an anachronism at best and has been seen for a very long time by many people as a grotesque absurdity. Shall we mourn the loss from our legislative process of The Baron Darcy de Knayth, or The Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry? Probably not, but that’s not the whole story.
In his valedictory speech to the Lords last month, the 19th Earl of Devon described himself as a “defender of the indefensible” but made the point that the hereditary peers would not only be missed as individuals, but as “an essential, ancient thread in the complex and fragile constitutional fabric that supports our nation”. I spoke to a venerable Lib Dem life peer this morning and he echoed this reflection, although in slightly less portentous tones. “Part of me will miss the hereditaries,” he said. “They knew stuff, and were, by nature, more independent-minded.”
From Lord Grenville’s important role in the abolition of the slave trade to the Countess of Mar’s significant work in the recognition of Gulf War syndrome, many hereditary peers have made estimable contributions to the work of the Lords. Even since 1999, when they have been on a stay of execution, their attendance record has been better than the overall average for the Lords.
Many use their specialised knowledge in, for instance, rural affairs and the military to good effect, and because they don’t owe their place on the red benches to party allegiance, they have often shown themselves to be awkward, stubborn and resolutely unimpressed by the political currents of the day. They were influencers long before the word had been invented.
This is not to make a case for the preservation of the status quo: it is to suggest that their departure should be treated with rather more respect than being given seven weeks formal notice, which was the effect of the Hereditary Peers Bill passed in March (they must all leave before the King’s Speech next month). As the Earl of Devon pointed out, for the longer-serving peers, this was less than the statutory minimum.
Sometimes, in the rush to make our institutions reflect the mores of the day, we lose sight of the less tangible, definable aspects of our nation, like history and tradition and, indeed, eccentricity. Of course, a parliamentary system that was introduced in Anglo-Saxon times is not likely to be fit for purpose in 2026, and an accident of birth should not automatically confer power on a person. But, in the messy, imperfect business of governing a country, the hereditary principle fulfilled a certain role and a continuity in public life that, as it ends, is likely to go unrecognised.
For a legislature that prides itself on the ceremonial, it is remarkable that this should be so. There is an unarguable case for the slimming down of the Lords, but that writ would run much deeper and wider than simply getting rid of the hereditary peers.
With their disappearance, we are left with a Lords made up entirely of peers who owe their existence largely to the patronage of a political party. If you look down the register of the Lords, you’ll be able to name many members less worthy to be clad in ermine than some of the Dukes and Viscounts.
The future may be fairer, tidier and more modern. But it will also be less independent, and somehow less British.
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