The last of the hereditary Lords – but will they be missed?

“Is anyone surprised that I’m a reasonably good parliamentarian?”

“So you think good politics runs in people’s DNA?”

“And it can run for a very long time if you look at the Marquess of Salisbury.”

I’m talking to John Attlee, the 3rd Earl Attlee. He’s the grandson of the Labour prime minister, who was given a hereditary title back in 1955. That means that since 1992, the present Lord Attlee has sat in the House of Lords, and he’s been a Conservative peer since 1997.

Yet for the 92 hereditary peers in the upper chamber, their time in Parliament is set to come to an end. The Labour government promised in its manifesto to finish what it started in 1999: abolishing the hereditaries.

“I’m absolutely happy to admit that I have done nothing to deserve my seat in the House of Lords other than carefully select my father, and he did the same thing,” Lord Attlee says.

“On the other hand, no one can say to me, ‘we didn’t put you in the House of Lords to vote this way’. I can say and vote exactly how I like, and all the other members of the House of Lords, certainly of the political appointees, they are there because they know someone in the Westminster bubble.”

Lord Attlee argues that the “political cronyism” that we have seen in recent years – where prime ministers have filled the upper chamber with party donors and allies – has been to the detriment of the Lords, and has made it too London-centric. “The hereditary peers come from all around the country,” he says.

“Even though they come from around the country, none are people of colour and none currently are women,” I reply.

“Yes, absolutely, that’s a defect. But the problem with the women is fixable if you wanted to, but what’s the point of fixing it if we’re going to stop the system because it’s anachronistic. On the colour, yes, there’s nothing you can do about that.”

The fact that the hereditary peers are so unrepresentative is one of the many reasons why this week the government introduced a bill to remove their right to sit and vote in the chamber.

The Minister for the Constitution, Nick Thomas-Symonds said, “The hereditary principle in law making has lasted for too long and is out of step with modern Britain. The second chamber plays a vital role in our constitution and people should not be voting on our laws in Parliament by an accident of birth.”

Tony Blair had promised to do this back when he was first elected in 1997, but he instead allowed 92 to remain. That was meant to be a temporary measure before further reforms were agreed upon. That never happened, mainly because it’s incredibly difficult to get any consensus on how to reform the House of Lords.

“I think it’s entirely reasonable to be scared of taking on large scale Lords reform,” says Meg Russell, the director of the Constitution Unit at University College London.

“Harold Wilson tried and failed in 1968. Tony Blair and Gordon Brown gave it a go. Nick Clegg fell on his face when his bill couldn’t get through the House of Commons. I think that Keir Starmer does present himself as quite pragmatic and realistic and I think if you’re pragmatic and realistic, it is sensible to do the small things first.”

In its manifesto Labour said it would introduce a mandatory retirement age and reform the appointments process. Back in 2022, Gordon Brown submitted a report that spoke of wholescale reform of the Lords.

“Reform is very complicated,” Russell continues. “We have a House of Lords which is obviously appointed and not elected, and a lot of people would like to see an elected second chamber. But when you start talking about an elected second chamber, other people fear that maybe they will start challenging the primacy of the House of Commons, and what electoral system would you use?”

“There are actually things that people appreciate about the House of Lords. They quite like the fact that not everybody in there is a party politician. They quite like the fact that there are some experts in there.”

That is what Lord Attlee argues. I met him at the REME Museum, where he works on renovating military vehicles for the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers. It is his happy place, he says, given that he used to work in the heavy goods industry and he represents their views in Parliament.

“We’ve got about 400,000 lorry drivers,” he says. “And no one else in Parliament has any lived experience of being a lorry driver, and not only am I a lorry driver, I’m actually a qualified HGV driving instructor.” It is that niche expertise that he believes would be lost once he leaves Parliament.

Attlee shows me the Conqueror, a huge armoured recovery vehicle that he has been working on. He even lets me sit next to him as he manoeuvres it around the REME Museum warehouse. I ask him how he feels about the fact that his days in Parliament are now numbered.

“I’ve done 32 years, I’ve given a really good return of service. I’ve been really, really lucky to have that position. I’ve done the best job I possibly could with it. I think I’ve met my obligations to society to balance the opportunity I had.”