Reform of the House of Lords

The reform of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, has been a topic of discussion in UK politics for more than a century. Multiple governments have attempted reform, beginning with the introduction of the Parliament Act 1911 by the incumbent Liberal Government, which stated:

...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation^[1]

When the Labour Party came to power in the 1997 general election, it had in its manifesto the promise to reform the House of Lords:

The House of Lords must be reformed. As an initial, self-contained reform, not dependent on further reform in the future, the right of hereditary Peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords will be ended by statute...^[2]

The Blair government subsequently passed the House of Lords Act 1999. On 7 November 2001 the government undertook a public consultation.^[3] This helped to create a public debate on the issue of Lords reform, with 1,101 consultation responses^[4] and numerous debates in Parliament and the media. However, no consensus on the future of the upper chamber emerged.

All three of the main parties promised to take action on Lords reform in the 2010 general election, and following it the Coalition Agreement included a promise to "establish a committee to bring forward proposals for a wholly or mainly elected upper chamber on the basis of proportional representation".^[5] Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg introduced the House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 on 27 June 2012^[6] which built on proposals published on 17 May 2011.^[7] However, this Bill was abandoned by the Government on 6 August 2012 following opposition from within the Conservative Party. A successful attempt to pursue minor reform of the House was made on 14 May 2014 when the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 gained Royal Assent.