Hereditary lordships a-leaping into history as UK parliament axes family ties after 700 years

Peers tell The National of their dismay at having places hitherto conferred by birthright replaced by prime ministerial appointees

David Cholmondeley, seventh Marquess of Cholmondeley, is one of the few ex officio hereditary peers who survived the last House of Lords cull. AFP

For the past seven centuries Britain has been partly ruled by a small group of men who inherited power rather than being elected, but the winds of change are catching up with this nook of the Westminster matrix.

Under the Labour government the last redoubt of this curiously undemocratic yet important cog in the constitutional wheel will end once new legislation is enacted, eradicating the 92 remaining hereditary peers.

Among them will be lords whose ancestors have played key roles in shaping the Middle East and others who have been regular visitors and champions of the Gulf region.

Some call this a left-wing socialist attack on the upper classes that could even endanger the monarchy itself, while others argue that it makes Britain’s democracy more suited for the 21st century.

Ancient link

Not only was Britain “losing an ancient link with history”, Tom Galbraith, who sits as hereditary peer Lord Strathclyde, told The National, but “this move is wholly undemocratic”.

It will now give the Prime Minister more scope to add to the Lords chamber his own appointees of “life peers”, whose titles are not inherited by their offspring.

“This is designed to give control to the Labour Party, to ensure that the only way into the House of Lords is by the Prime Minister ticking your name" he said. "We should not only be aware of this and be anxious about it, but we should try to stop it.”

Lord Strathclyde, once leader of the House of Lords, leaves No 10 Downing Street in London. Getty Images

Democratic deficit

But others view those comments as gripes of an outdated group that should have been axed when former prime minister Tony Blair first reformed the Lords in 1999, removing 667 peers and leaving behind only 92 survivors as a compromise.

“There is an evident democratic deficit in having an entirely unelected House of Lords having a role to play in the passing of laws,” said Stephen Clear, a constitutional law lecturer at Bangor University, Wales.

He voiced concerns that their positions in the House of Lords had been acquired “by virtue of who their dad was and antiquated ideas of having a birthright to be there”.

Their continued presence was "outdated and indefensible”, and, unlike hereditary life peers, were appointed on merit with recognised expertise or specialist knowledge equipping them for debates.

Lords power

Those debates do play a role in British democracy, with the lords' primary function to review legislation, but it cannot veto laws, only delay them being passed, although that can still at times lead to their demise.

Lords also have the power to revise and scrutinise legislation, and offer amendments, as well as debate the most important issues of the day.

The House of Lords chamber. Getty Images

There are 45 Conservative hereditary peers, with the rest mainly cross-benchers, who have no party political affiliation – only two are Labour peers.

Another unelected person who received his rank by birthright but is allowed to vote and speak in the Lords is the Prince of Wales, although King Charles III only did this once when in that role.

Monarchy threat

But that raises concerns among some that by expelling hereditaries, parliament removes a “buffer” to the royal family, who will be the last people in Britain who wield some power by dint of who their parents were. Only lords who play a constitutional role assisting the monarch with official duties such as Lord Carrington and the Marquess of Cholmondeley will remain as ex officio members.

“There is a genuine nervousness about the ending of the rights of hereditary peers to sit in the legislature,” said Robert Buckland, a former justice secretary and Lord Chancellor. “Once you remove the regulatory right to sit in the Lords, the only hereditary family left with any constitutional rights is the royal family.”

But while the British monarchy remains popular and no mainstream party would consider the idea of proposing a republic, the concerns remain.

King Charles III sits alongside Britain's Queen Camilla, during the State Opening of Parliament in 2024. Getty Images

“Whatever republican sympathies may exist deep inside the Labour Party, we are all extremely happy with our system of constitutional monarchy," said Lord Strathclyde. "I don't think that they are threatened or would be kicked out in favour of some kind of presidential system.”

While he recognised that currently there was a “really considerable level of support for the hereditary monarchy”, life peer John Woodcock – Lord Walney – gently warned that Britain had an “evolutionary political and governance system”.

“It certainly may mean that in generations to come, you need to restate the value of the monarchy. But even if the hereditary peers go, a republican-minded party is still unlikely to succeed while public support for the monarchy remains so high,” the former Labour MP added.

Middle East earls

Among the departing earls and dukes will be a number with eminent ancestors whose roles impacted the Middle East.

Henry, the fourth Viscount Allenby of Megiddo – whose great-uncle Gen Edmund Allenby led the Arab Revolt against the Ottoman Empire culminating in the capture of Jerusalem in 1917 – will be purged. Megiddo refers to a site in the ancient Palestinian lands.

In recent years, Lord Allenby had kept the Middle East link going, visiting Jerusalem to commemorate the victory a century later, where he was a guest of honour.

Others continue to keep close ties, with Merlin Hay, the 24th Earl of Erroll, whose title goes back to 1453, being a regular visitor to the Gulf, including to Dubai to participate in business conferences.

Viscount Edmund Allenby. Getty Images

‘Huge era’ ends

Ultimately what parliament loses, said Lord Strathclyde, will be people “who are not creatures of patronage”, who enter the Lords “by virtue of birth”.

Many have contributed considerably to debating the nation's laws for the greater good of Britain, mostly with little political allegiance.

“They did an enormous amount of good and have been part of the background of this nation with which we have grown up,” said the former leader of the House of Lords.

“You can see what we're losing,” he lamented, which was to be replaced by a “wholly appointed” Houses of Parliament, mostly at the will of a prime minister.

“This bill ends over 800 years of heredity within the House of Lords, thrown away and simply replaced by friends of the Prime Minister,” he warned.

The hereditaries brought a certain independence to lawmaking “as they owe nobody anything”, said Mr Buckland.

It was, he added, the “end of a huge era” that people by birthright could no longer take their seats in the Lords.

Lord Walney considered that hereditary lords brought a “particular flavour and level of expertise into the chamber”, with many experts who were “not necessarily working directly on party political lines”.

“So we need to be careful about that loss,” he too warned.

Mr Buckland thought it was “another brick knocked out of the Jenga tower” of Britain’s enduring traditions. The abolition, he argued, was “an unnecessary measure designed to make an ideological point to the Labour Party”.

The slight contradiction that the government will now have to wear is that the person who signs the hereditary peers’ bill into law, by giving his royal assent, will be King Charles III, who too inherited his position by dint of birth.