A Labour Peer is trying to abolish hereditary peers (again) There is overwhelming support for reform but Friday once again showed there is little chance of it succeeding. On Friday 3rd December, for the fourth time in just five years, Labour peer Lord Bruce Grocott... Posted 07 Dec 2021
Lords call for decisive action to slim down the ever-expanding second chamber Buried amidst last week’s fall-out from the Queen’s Speech and the elections was the fourth report of the Lord Speaker’s Committee on the Size of the House. The committee, established in 2016 by Lord Fowler,... Posted 21 May 2021
Hereditary peer by-elections have been paused. They should be scrapped entirely The House of Lords just keeps getting bigger. Following the PM’s appointment of 36 new unelected peers, each week sees more introduced to a chamber that is bursting at the seams. The Lords themselves have... Posted 18 Sep 2020
Revealed: The true cost of Britain’s silent peers There are many perks to being a member of the House of Lords. While many peers do work hard, it seems one of the perks is being able to claim expenses for doing very little.... Posted 17 Aug 2020
The unelected House of Lords is undermining Britain’s reputation Britain's ability to speak up for democracy abroad has just taken a major self-inflicted hit. Posted 06 Aug 2020
The already super-sized House of Lords is about to get bigger Plans to appoint dozens of new unelected Lords make a mockery of claims that the chamber is slimming down. Posted 27 Jul 2020
Unelected aristocrats are still trying to call the shots in Parliament. It’s time for change This week the ballots dropped for the world’s most elitist election. A contest to select a new hereditary Crossbench peer to sit in the House of Lords. You’d be forgiven for thinking that elections for... Posted 12 Mar 2019
Lords lost in stasis as fake reforms go nowhere Politics is often dominated by disagreements, but one thing almost everyone agrees on is this: the House of Lords is too big. At 800 members, we have the largest second chamber in the world. So... Posted 02 Nov 2018
Voting patterns in the House of Lords rubbish claims of its independence Article first published by Politics.co.uk. It is anticipated that Theresa May will appoint up to a dozen Tory peers this month – which could be joined by a handful of Labour members and some from the DUP. It is... Posted 11 Jan 2018
The facts are clear: We can’t afford to let the Lords go unreformed Tomasina Wallman is a University of Nottingham Research Placement student with the Electoral Reform Society. The evidence is stronger than ever. The House of Lords is a drain not only on our democracy, but on... Posted 16 Nov 2017