A 700-year-old pillar of the British political establishment is set to vanish, as Parliament has officially approved legislation to eject all remaining hereditary peers from the House of Lords.
The House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill cleared its final parliamentary stage on Tuesday evening, marking the end of a centuries-old tradition in which aristocrats held legislative power solely through the accident of birth. This landmark reform, a central manifesto commitment of Prime Minister Keir Starmer's Labour government, completes a process of constitutional modernisation that began over a quarter of a century ago.
