House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026: Passage of the legislation
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 removed the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords.
The House of Lords Act 1999 provided for 92 ‘excepted’ hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. It provided for excepted hereditary peers to be replaced when they leave the House, with detailed arrangements set out in standing orders.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024–26 was a government bill. The bill, as originally introduced, sought to remove all remaining excepted hereditary peers from the House of Lords (from the end of the 2024–26 session) and to abolish the House of Lords’ jurisdiction in relation to claims to hereditary peerages.
During the passage of the bill, the House of Lords made a number of amendments. The House of Commons accepted amendments to allow someone acting on behalf of a peer who lacks capacity to give and sign a notice of the peer’s resignation from the Lords. But the Commons rejected, and the Lords did not press, amendments to provide for existing hereditary peers to remain in the House of Lords.
As a result of the passage of the legislation, 76 excepted hereditary peers who were eligible to sit in the Lords and one excepted peer on leave of absence left the House of Lords at the end of the 2024–26 parliamentary session.
Passage of the billThe House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024–25 was introduced in the House of Commons on 5 September 2024.
It received its second reading on 15 October 2024 and completed committee and remaining stages on a single day on 12 November. The bill was not amended by the House of Commons before it sent it to the House of Lords (see HL Bill 49 (PDF)).
The bill received its second reading in the House of Lords on 11 December 2024 (morning sitting and afternoon sitting).
Committee stage in the House of Lords began on 3 March 2025 and continued over five days. No amendments were made to the bill at Lords committee stage.
The House of Lords completed its consideration of the bill on 21 July 2025. It made amendments to the bill at report stage (2 July and 9 July 2025) and at third reading (see Bill 295 (PDF)), on 21 July.
The House of Commons debated the Lords Amendments on 4 September 2025.
The House of Lords considered the Commons Reasons (PDF) for disagreeing to the amendments it disagreed with on 10 March 2026. The House of Lords welcomed the Commons’ agreement to amendments relating to resignation and did not insist on its other amendments. This followed the government agreeing to allow “an agreed number of life peerages” to be allocated to the Official Opposition and the crossbenches, as they relied “significantly” on the experience of hereditary peers.
The government had also introduced legislation to increase the number of ministerial salaries that could be paid to ministers in the House of Lords (now the Ministerial Salaries (Amendment) Act 2026).
The bill received Royal Assent on 18 March 2026.
Changes made by the House of Lords and response of the CommonsAt report stage in the House of Lords, the following amendments (PDF) were agreed to. These were all proposed by Conservative members of the House of Lords and were made to the bill following divisions in which the government was defeated:
- Allow existing excepted hereditary peers to continue to sit in the House of Lords but stop replacing them when they leave. The Lords removed a clause that would have ended the right of excepted hereditary peers to sit in the Lords and replaced it with a clause that would end the process of by-elections to replace excepted hereditary peers who left the House of Lords for any reason.
- Make unpaid ministers (unless they were offered a salary and declined it) ineligible to sit in the House of Lords.
- Lord True who pressed this amendment said he wanted to send “a clear message” to the Commons and government that “service as a Minister in your Lordships’ House should be properly remunerated”
- Allow the King to confer peerages without the right to receive a writ of summons to attend the House of Lords.
The Commons disagreed to these amendments on 4 September 2025.
The Lords did not insist on these amendments on 10 March 2026.
Other amendments made in the Lords:
- At third reading, the House of Lords agreed to a government new clause to ensure people who hold power of attorney on behalf of a member of the House of Lords can sign papers to permit their retirement from the House of Lords (Lords Amendment (LA) 4). Consequential amendments provided for the government new clause to come into effect on Royal Assent and to change the bill’s long title to reflect this addition (LAs 5–7 and 9).
- The Commons agreed to these amendments.
- The Lords agreed a further amendment (LA 8), from Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative), to remove a sub-section that said writs of summons for hereditary peers had no effect after the end of this session. This was necessary because one of the amendments agreed at report stage allowed hereditary peers to continue to sit in the House of Lords.
- The Commons disagreed to this amendment, as it was consequential to another amendment to which MPs disagreed.
- The Lords did not insist on these amendments on 10 March 2026.
In its manifesto for the 2024 general election (PDF), the Labour Party set out its proposals for House of Lords reform. It said removing hereditary peers was an “immediate modernisation”.
As well as this “first step”, the Labour Party also proposed:
- changes to appointments process, to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber
- a mandatory retirement age
- a participation requirement
- replacing the House of Lords with “an alternative second Chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”
The Labour Party said “Labour will consult on proposals, seeking the input of the British public on how politics can best serve them”.
Retirement and Participation CommitteeSpeaking at both report stage and at third reading, Baroness Smith of Basildon, the Leader of the House of Lords said she had concluded a select committee should be set up to look at retirement and participation, issues that members of the House of Lord supported further reform on. She expected this to happen after the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill had been enacted.
The House of Lords agreed it was desirable to appoint a committee on 16 December 2025. On 18 December, it agreed to appoint the committee and its 12 members to consider and make recommendations on a retirement age and a participation requirement for members of the House of Lords. The committee was to report by 31 July 2026.
The Retirement and Participation Committee completed its work without taking oral evidence in public session. However, it did hold private discussions and received written evidence. The committee’s report was published on 15 July 2026.
The committee recommended that a retirement age of 80, should be phased in over five years. Retirement under the scheme should begin in July 2029 (the last possible date for the dissolution of the current Parliament), with a retirement age of 85. The retirement age would reduce by a year each year, until it reached 80, in 2034.
It also recommended that the minimum attendance threshold should be set at 20% of sitting days, averaged over two sessions. Members who fail to meet this requirement should cease to be members of the House of Lords. It recommended that this requirement should be set in standing orders, not legislation.
Further informationThe Library research briefing, House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024–25, was published before the second reading of the bill in the House of Commons.
The House of Lords Library has produced four briefings on the bill. The first, published before second reading in the House of Lords, provided background to the bill and reported on debates on the bill in the House of Commons:
The second briefing provided an overview of the Lords second reading debate and listed the areas which future amendments could focus on:
The third briefing provided an overview of debate committee stage in the House of Lords:
The fourth briefing reviewed the amendments made at report stage and third reading:
The Lords Library has also collated information on Hereditary peers in the House of Lords on its website.