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PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
House of Lords Reform - 5 December 2024 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

Debate Detail

Contributions from Nick Thomas-Symonds, are highlighted with a yellow border.
Lab
Ms Polly Billington
East Thanet
18. What recent progress his Department has made on reform of the House of Lords.
Nick Thomas-Symonds
The Paymaster General and Minister for the Cabinet Office
The Government have brought forward the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill as an immediate first step in reform. That will remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. The Bill passed this House unamended and will have its Second Reading in the other place next week.

In addition, I am proud to announce today that I have laid a written ministerial statement that will ensure that political parties nominating people for peerages in the other place will now have to publish, alongside the nomination, a 150 word summary as to why they are putting that person forward. That is another reform that this Government are proud to announce as part of our wider agenda.
  10:09:48
Ms Billington
I welcome my right hon. Friend’s response, particularly the fact that it will increase transparency for the other place. Does he agree that we have a mandate for reform, and while respecting the individuals, we are absolutely determined as a Government to progress the abolition of the hereditary principle in lawmaking?
Nick Thomas-Symonds
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It just should not be the case, in a modern legislature, that there are places reserved for people by accident of birth. The Bill has now passed this House unamended. As I have indicated, it will now go before the other place for Second Reading next week. We want to get that Bill on to the statute book as soon as possible.

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