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Research & Analysis Published 19 Dec 2025 House of Commons Library ↗ View on Parliament

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-25: Progress of the bill

Type: Commons Briefing Paper (CBP-10219) The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill, as introduced, would remove the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords. The bill was amended in the Lords.

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House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024-25Progress of the bill - House of Commons Library

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The bill

The
House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill 2024–25
is a government bill. The bill, as originally introduced, would remove all remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords and abolish the House of Lords’ jurisdiction in relation to claims to hereditary peerages.

However, the bill was amended in the House of Lords to provide for existing excepted hereditary members of the House of Lords to remain as members of the House of Lords until they leave the House.

When the Commons considered Lords Amendments on 4 September 2025, MPs restored the original provision to the bill. How the Commons dealt with other Lords Amendments is described below.

The House of Lords Act 1999 provided for there to be 92 excepted hereditary peers. The 1999 act provides for excepted hereditary peers to be replaced when they leave the House. Arrangements for by-elections to replace hereditary peers are set out in standing orders. While the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill is before Parliament, by-elections have been suspended.
There are currently 85 excepted hereditary peers
.

Passage of the bill

The 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
. It 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
.

No date has yet been scheduled for the House of Lords to consider the
Commons Reasons
(PDF) for disagreeing to the amendments it disagreed with.

Changes made by the House of Lords and response of the Commons

At 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. 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

Add a new clause to 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
”

Add a new clause to 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.

Other amendments made in the Lords:

At third reading, the House of Lords also 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 on behalf of the peer 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

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 was also agreed. 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.

Next steps on Lords reform

In its
manifesto for the 2024 general election
(PDF), the Labour Party set out its proposals for House of Lords reform. It identified the removal of hereditary peers as 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”.

Speaking 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; and on 18 December, it
agreed to appoint the committee and its 12 members
. It was appointed to consider and make recommendations on a retirement age and a participation requirement for members of the House of Lords. The committee is to report by 31 July 2026.

Background information

The 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:

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) BillHL Bill 49 of 2024–25

The second briefing provided an overview of the Lords second reading debate and listed the areas which future amendments could focus on:

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) BillSecond reading in the House of Lords

The third briefing provided an overview of debate committee stage in the House of Lords:

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) BillCommittee stage

The fourth briefing reviewed the amendments made at report stage and third reading:

House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) BillAmendments made in the House of Lords

The Lords Library has also collated information on
Hereditary peers in the House of Lords
on its website.