MPS have voted to abolish hereditary peers from the House of Lords, with a 362-vote majority in the House of Commons.
It comes as the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill cleared the Commons this evening with MPs voting 435 in favour and 73 against.
The Bill will now undergo further scrutiny in the Lords where it could face stiffer resistance.
The SNP’s deputy leader Pete Wishart proposed the abolition of the upper chamber in a series of amendments to bill, as well as a further amendment to force peers to pay income tax on their parliamentary pay.
A further SNP amendment was lodged to prohibit political parties from appointing anyone to the Lords who has donated more than £11,180 — the legal threshold at which political donations must be declared.
However, neither were selected to be heard past the committee stage .The SNP said the amendments were "denied both a debate and a vote" in the Commons.
The Bill seeks to deliver on Labour’s commitment to bring about an “immediate modernisation” by abolishing the 92 seats reserved for peers who are there by right of birth.
The House did vote on and rejected a LibDems amendment which would have forced ministers to examine proposals to directly elect members to the upper chamber and rejected a Conservative amendment to remove bishops from the House.
The Government has yet to outline a timeline on further changes, including its long-term ambition for an “alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”.
🗣 'This really is a timid pipsqueak of a bill' Pete Wishart has urged the Government to give greater detail on 'promised further reform' of the House of Lords It comes as MPs debate the third reading of the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill pic.twitter.com/oyDTGFeCvL
— The National (@ScotNational) November 12, 2024
As the third reading opened, Wishart said it was a "timid pipsqueak of a bill" that “should have been done centuries ago” and called on the UK Government to issue greater detail on "further Lords reform".
Speaking following the vote, Wishart said: “Labour MPs have just waved through a weak and insipid Bill that signals to voters that it’s business as usual for Westminster under the Labour Party with the unelected international embarrassment that is the House of Lords operating as usual – the SNP is absolutely clear that this archaic institution should be abolished. "The House of Lords is an institution of the kind you'd find in a banana republic, second-only in size to the Congress of China costing taxpayers more than £200million a year and the fact that Labour MPs from Scotland can stand up and vote to protect that system is quite frankly embarrassing. “For 114 years the Labour Party has promised voters they’d abolish the Lords, only to find it never happens and the unelected ermine clad regime rolls on setting our laws while picking up their tax-free £342 turning-up pay – make no mistake about it, champagne corks will be popping in the Lords tonight and it’s the tax payer that will be picking up the bill."
Wishart also referred to the tax-free pay received by Lords — currently worth up to £361 per day — which is payable for any day they turn up in Parliament, even just to sign in to confirm their attendance.
He said: “They don’t pay a penny of tax, not one penny of tax. They are amongst the wealthiest people in this nation, but not one penny of the £346 that they get just for turning up is paid in tax.”
Last year, lords claimed more than £20 million in attendance allowances — all tax free. The SNP said that this means peers avoided up to £9m in income tax last year.
The cost of the House of Lords was also £212m in 2023, according to research from the House of Commons Library commissioned by the SNP.
