Hereditary Seats, Clerical Appointments and Other Anomalies in the British Parliament

Britain’s system of government is as ramshackle as they come – about as dated and dust-ridden as the neo-Gothic monstrosity on the banks of the Thames in which the parliament meets. There’s no British constitution, no foundational document in the manner of India or the United States; there’s been no revolution in modern times, no independence moment, so no re-set of the political system.

Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty

The whole political edifice is built on a curious mix of custom and statute, and in the darker corners of the parliament persist practices that should have no place in a modern democracy. Take the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Britain’s parliament. This has limited powers and is often described as a revising chamber – providing a finishing touch to the measures approved by the House of Commons. That’s only part of the story. The Lords has real power – to delay legislation, in some circumstances to introduce legislation, and to hold the executive to account. Yet it is not elected, directly or indirectly; it is not remotely representative of the nation it helps to govern; its members are accountable to no one.

Among those eligible to sit in the House of Lords, to speak and to vote, are 26 bishops of Britain’s established church, the Church of England. They are known as the Lords Spiritual and are a well-behaved bunch who keep their noses clean. But the Church of England is a marginal force in public life, and fewer than one person in a hundred attends Sunday Church of England religious services. It is the nation’s church in name only. No other Christian denomination, no other religion, has ring-fenced seats in parliament. 

How can any democracy justify allowing clerics to sit in a national parliament simply because of the religious appointments they hold? Critics of this anomaly point out that the only other nation in which religious leaders sit in parliament simply because of their clerical posts is Iran. This is not a comfortable comparison.

The House of Lords also has more than 90 hereditary peers – men who are members of the upper chamber of parliament simply by the accident of birth. Is there any other parliament which includes hereditary members? Yes, Lesotho in southern Africa.

Most members of the House of Lords are nominated – nominally by the King, but in practice by the prime minister. Some are former elected politicians coming to the end of their careers. Others are generous donors to political parties. A few are men and women who have had distinguished careers in law, business, medicine or the arts. There are even a few scientists. In all, there are more than 800 peers (among the world’s parliamentary chambers, only the National People’s Congress in China has more members), and if they all turned up at the same time – which of course they don’t – barely half of them would find anywhere in the chamber to sit. 

But of course, Britain has a new government, led by the Labour Party’s Keir Starmer. And it’s taking a fresh look at the House of Lords. Legislation to reform the upper chamber passed its first parliamentary hurdle last week. Yet the measure is more an act of political conservatism – making the minimum necessary changes to preserve the existing political dispensation and its underlying power structure – than a means of making parliament fit for purpose. There’s talk of more comprehensive reform in a few years’ time – but we’ve heard that one before.

As part of the government’s proposed changes, the hereditary peers will lose their berths in the House of Lords. That’s being described as Britain’s biggest constitutional reform in a quarter-of-a-century. But that’s all that will change. There will still be no elections for any seats in the Lords, and so no democratic accountability; the system of prime ministerial patronage will remain; and, remarkably, the bishops will keep their places on the benches of the House of Lords. God help us!