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Labour plans to introduce age limits as it seeks to reduce the size of the House of Lords, which could see hundreds of peers forced into retirement.
Currently, the House of Lords has 784 sitting members, making it the largest upper house of any parliament in the world.
Reforms introduced under Tony Blair’s government removed most hereditary peerages and cut the number of MPs from more than 1,300 to just 690, but numbers have since started to slowly increase.
To combat this increase and lay the groundwork for more far-reaching reforms in the future, I It is understood Labour will set out in its manifesto plans to impose a new cap on peerage, requiring people to retire at 80.
The deadline is expected to apply from the time the next general election is called, meaning that peers currently over 80 years old will not have to step down until the next election is held, likely in 2028 or 2029.
Labour is also said to be proposing to ban by-elections for hereditary peers – people whose membership in the House of Lords is based on family descent.
Under current rules, if one of the remaining 92 hereditary peers dies or retires, a successor can be chosen from among the dukes, earls, viscounts and barons to fill the seat.
Labour had originally planned to go further, with former Prime Minister Gordon Brown leading a review in 2022, proposing to replace the House of Lords with elected national and regional parliaments.
But the party has since backtracked on its pledge to push through these reforms during its first parliamentary term, opting instead for a phased approach that would reportedly start with an age limit.
But this watered-down alternative could have far-reaching effects on both the composition and size of the Senate. I It suggests that at least 346 nobles could be forced to step down when the next elections are held in spring 2029.
These proposals would disproportionately affect the Labour Party, losing just under 100 sitting MPs, while the Conservative Party would lose just under 90, assuming no retirements or deaths.
While reducing the size of the House of Lords is seen as politically popular, the plans have raised concerns among critics that Labour could use it as an opportunity to appoint more peers to rebalance the Upper House.
Labour currently has 172 seats – significantly fewer than the Conservatives’ 275 – which could give Sir Keir Starmer’s party headaches if it comes to power as it tries to pass difficult legislation.
Darren Hughes, chief executive of the Electoral Reform Association (ERS), said the fact that Labour may need to appoint dozens of new peers to pass the bill “highlights the absurdity” of the system.
“If the expansion of the House of Lords is not a harbinger of serious democratic reform of the Senate, it sends a terrible message to the public,” he said. I.
Mr Hughes added that recent scandals over aristocracy and patronage have “eroded public trust in politics, which is currently at a record low”.
“However, we are concerned that the 80-year age limit may be arbitrary, as there are people beyond that age who are very active and making valuable contributions.
“Also, today, for lawmakers starting their careers in their late 20s and early 30s, they are essentially guaranteed unelected lawmaking for 50 years, which is an absurd situation in a modern democracy.
Other critics have warned that age limits are a “blunt measure” to reduce the size of the House of Lords and do not address many of the problems facing the Upper House.
Professor Meg Russell, director of the constitutional law department at University College London, said the proposals meant “excluding the wrong people”.
She added: “If you asked people to name their respected members of the House of Lords, I can almost guarantee that most of the respected ones would be over 80 years old, and most of the unrespected ones would be younger.”
Several people pointed out that the rules would force Lord Dubs, a Labour peer who escaped the Nazis as a child on the Kindertransport and is a prominent refugee rights campaigner, into retirement because he is 91 years old.
But controversial appointments such as Micheál Mone, 52, who attracted intense scrutiny last year for his role in a scandal over the procurement of PPE during the pandemic, will be allowed to stay on for a further 28 years.
Professor Russell I The first step for a Labour government in reforming the House of Lords should be an overhaul of the appointment process that allows the Prime Minister to appoint peers.
She argued that the House of Lords Appointments Committee (Horak), which advises the Prime Minister on nominees for honours, should be given greater powers to vet and reject candidates.
“Let’s address that issue, which is an issue of the quality of appointments, rather than focusing on what’s not an issue – which is that elders are running things in the House of Lords,” she said.
“I would expect the Labor party to say something about some improvements to the appointments process because I think that’s a really urgent issue.”
Her concerns were echoed by Mr Hughes, who criticised the “unbridled and undemocratic system for creating new peers” for allowing prime ministers to “add friends and donors to the House of Lords at their whim”.
“The best way to clean up politics and restore public trust is to replace the unelected House of Lords with a smaller elected parliament with a fixed number of members, in which the people, not the Prime Minister, decide who makes the laws we all live by.”
Prof Russell urged Labour to “think carefully”.
Earlier this year, Labour’s Lord Mandelson, a member of the House of Lords, warned that his party’s plans for the House of Lords were not ready, saying they were “far from being fully baked” and “still in the oven”.
“This requires a lot more discussion and analysis than has been done so far,” he said in an interview with Senate President McFaul.
“There’s been no real debate about this within the party, let alone a national debate, and yet we’re being told, abracadabra, that all of this will happen during the first term of a Labour government, with six months to go until a general election.”