Harriet Harman has today put forward an amendment to the Government’s Hereditary Peers Bill which aims to end the automatic right of Church of England bishops to sit in the House of Lords. The amendment has been tabled with the support of Humanists UK and it is expected that it will be cosponsored by crossbench peer and former Director-General of the BBC Lord Birt and the Liberal Democrat peer Lord Scriven.
The Hereditary Peers Bill is a Government bill brought to remove hereditary peers from the House of Lords. Currently, 26 bishops, known as the Lords Spiritual, also automatically hold seats. This historic privilege has long been criticised as being unfair, unjustified, and undemocratic.
Baroness Harman is a Labour peer, former Deputy Leader of the Labour Party, former Leader of the House of Commons and former chair of the Standards and Privileges Committees. Her amendment will mandate that the Government develops proposals to remove the Lords Spiritual within two years of the Bill coming into force. However, it would not prevent bishops from serving as life peers.
In its 2024 Manifesto, Labour said that it was ‘committed to replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations’. In 2022, Keir Starmer endorsed Gordon Brown’s proposals for a ‘fully elected’ second chamber, with no Lords Spiritual.
Bringing her amendment, Baroness Harman commented:
‘As the revising chamber, the Lords has an important role in scrutinising legislation. So its legitimacy matters. That’s why the Government is changing the law on hereditary peers to abolish their right to sit in the Lords by virtue of birth. The hereditary principle has no place in a modern legislature.
‘While we are considering the composition of the Lords we should tackle the anachronism of 26 peers sitting in the Lords by virtue of being bishops ordained in the Church of England. I’ve tabled amendments which will mean the Government would have to bring forward proposals within two years to end bishops sitting as peers by virtue of their ordination. It would be open to bishops to sit in the Lords under the usual appointment processes. We need to make sure that the Lords keeps up to date with modern Britain.’
Crossbench peer and former Director-General of the BBC Lord Birt is intending to cosponsor the amendment. He commented:
‘We are now an incredibly diverse society, comprised of people embracing many religions and beliefs. Embedding the Church of England in our legislature is an indefensible, undemocratic anomaly. I have the greatest possible respect for the individual qualities and the inherent goodness of leaders I have met in my time from many faiths. I would hope and expect to see faith leaders of every kind represented in a reformed House. But they should be appointed on individual merit, not as exercising a right existing in one form or another for half a millennium.’
Liberal Democrat peer Lord Scriven commented:
‘The Church of England is the only organisation in the UK that is granted seats in Parliament automatically, this is a medieval tradition not serving any effective purpose in the 21st century.
‘Now is the time to stop this fourteenth-century patronage and bring the Lords another step closer to looking and feeling like modern Britain. We should stop granting special power and privilege to a Church that no longer represents the vast majority of citizens Parliament serves.’
Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of Humanists UK, commented:
‘This amendment is an important move towards a more democratic House of Lords. The presence of bishops in Parliament gives undue weight to one particular religious group, sidelining the interests of the strong majority of people in the UK who are not members of the Church of England.
‘It is simply not appropriate for unelected representatives of one religious denomination to hold a privileged place in our legislative process. We congratulate Baroness Harman for her leadership on this issue and urge others to support this vital reform.’
Text of the amendment
After Clause 1, insert the following new clause—
Proposals for removing the Lords Spiritual
1) The Secretary of State must, within two years of the day on which this Act is passed, lay before Parliament a paper setting out proposals to remove the membership of the Lords Spiritual from the House of Lords.
2) The paper must include, but is not limited to, proposals to—
(a) remove the Lords Spiritual from membership of the House of Lords,
(b) remove or replace the functions of the Lords Spiritual in the proceedings of the House of Lords, and
(c) lay provisions for consequential changes to legislation, standing orders and running of the House of Lords to be made following the removal of the Lords Spiritual.
3) Nothing in the proposals may prevent a person who is, or has been, a bishop or Archbishop of the Church of England from receiving, and exercising the entitlements under, a peerage for life in accordance with section 1 of the Life Peerages Act 1958.
Notes
For further comment or information, media should contact Humanists UK Director of Public Affairs and Policy Richy Thompson at press@humanists.uk or phone 0203 675 0959.
Read more on the new poll showing only one in five Britons want bishops in the Lords.
Read more about our work on bishops in the Lords.
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