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Groundbreaking moves could really shake up our democracy





The Real Mackay by Dan Mackay

Red benches in the House of Lords Chamber. Picture: Wikimedia Creative Commons
Red benches in the House of Lords Chamber. Picture: Wikimedia Creative Commons

Not since the historic Abortion Act of 1967 has the UK parliament attempted another groundbreaking piece of legislation as they begin to steer the Assisted Dying Bill through Westminster.

Controversial, yes. Emotive, certainly.

In a free ballot the House of Commons opted, by 330 votes to 275, to pursue The Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill 2024-2025. It will doubtless come under intense scrutiny by elected parliamentarians and in “the other place” as the House of Lords, too, will seek to ensure sufficient safeguards are embedded into the new legislation.

The final outcome has yet to be endorsed before being placed on the country’s statutes.

Another Bill quietly making its way through parliament could also be groundbreaking. The new Labour government is seeking to introduce legislation to reform the House of Lords.

It is part of a longer-term plan to replace the ancient House with a second chamber - a first stage in the process is a proposal to remove hereditary peers from the House’s membership.

The Labour manifesto claims these reforms are “long overdue and essential”.

“Too many peers do not play a proper role in our democracy,” Labour claim. “Hereditary peers remain indefensible. And because appointments are for life, the second chamber of Parliament has become too big.”

I’ll second that!

The King’s Speech, delivered earlier this summer, included measures to “remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords”.

Labour also undertook to introduce a mandatory retirement age (with 80 years as max), strengthen the circumstances in which “disgraced” members could be removed, whilst they seek to improve the national and regional balance of the second chamber.

The latter will be especially interesting from a Scottish perspective, as the SNP does not have any members of the House of Lords on the principle that it opposes the upper house of Parliament and calls for it to be scrapped.

What Labour is essentially saying is that no one, just because of their birth right, should have any role in the parliament of a modern elected democracy. Who could reasonably disagree?

It seems Sir Keir Starmer is finishing off the work first begun by the former Labour PM Tony Blair who, in 1999, sought to get rid of the 600 hereditary peers, mostly Conservatives, who then had parliamentary privilege. But 92 remained as part of a compromise deal.

Rewind a bit. This Bill received Royal Assent in July 2024. That’s to say our king, Charles III, himself the heredity figurehead of the Windsor family, granted approval for a bonfire of all the old fuddy duddies. So much for loyalty!

But a bonfire that would obviously not impact in any way on the rights, privileges and constitutional status of the royal household of British monarchy.

But what’s good for the goose should be good for the gander. Why turn a blind eye on Charles and the dysfunctional Windsors?

Recent press scrutiny has exposed the extent of the profits his landed estates have been charging key British institutions, such as the NHS and the RNLI. It is clearly not enough for his family to get by on generous Sovereign Grants paid for by the British taxpayer. Our king wants even more!

Do the current reforms go far enough? Not for me they don’t.

Bring on the republic!


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