Revolution in British democracy: Lords to lose hereditary rights in Parliament. For over 200 years, 92 places of the British Upper House were inherited from father to son. Everyone, by chance, middle aged white men 70 years oldToday the Labour government is set to end some of its privileges and has announced that it will legislate against this centuries-old tradition so that blood will never again be enough to secure a seat.
Those who make up the House of Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom are intellectuals, prestigious figures or renowned businessmen who act as wise men and advisers on complex matters.
788 members in total who, yes, were not elected by the ballot box: 26 of them, Anglican bishops placed by the English church; 670, for the british crown with the advice of the prime ministers; and the other 92 benefit legacy of the privilege of being Lord. But now things are going to change.
The Secretary of State for the Constitution, Nick Thomas-Symonds, criticised the fact that “in the House of Lords there are still 92 hereditary peers who they can vote on our laws mainly because of his birth.”
This proposal comes from the other chamber, the lower chamber, that of the Commons, composed of representatives elected by the citizens.
Although Tony Blair already dealt the first blow to the hereditary lords in 1999, expelling 600 and leaving only 92: all white and, today, with an average age of 70. Now Starmer, also a Labour member, also wants to end privileges such as those of Edward Fitzalan-Howard, Duke of Norfolk.
Although he holds the seat his family has held since the first English Parliament in the Middle Ages, he has voted only 12 times in 21 years.
