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The Labour Party thinks so. Labour, now in government, promised in its manifesto to introduce a Lords’ mandatory retirement age of 80 and to change the process by which peers are appointed. They also introduced a bill in 2024 that seeks to remove hereditary peers from the chamber, calling the fact that they are allowed to sit in the Lords ‘outdated and indefensible’. As well as this, Labour has promised to improve the national and regional balance of the chamber. These pledges show the desire of our times for the diversity present in the United Kingdom to be reflected in our legislative process, as well as representing a sharp change in political priorities after 14 years of government by the Conservative Party. It is true that the House of Lords is a very large chamber, although with many inactive members: 834 people sit in the Lords overall! It therefore makes sense to want to create a smaller chamber that has the sole aim of scrutinising legislation, rather than also serving as a reward system for political supporters of the government of the day. The age restriction could help to deal with this, although the drawback is that expertise from some people older than 80, who could bring relevant views to bear on legislation, would inevitably be lost.

Sir Keir Starmer has gone further than simply promising reform of the House of Lords: he has pledged that he will seek to replace the House of Lords with an elected second chamber if he wins the next general election. But would this work in practice? While it would certainly be beneficial to get rid of peers who do not contribute to revising legislation, a key advantage of the House of Lords is that whilst some peers have party affiliations, many are ‘crossbench’ (not affiliated to any party) and can provide impartial views on legislation. Another great strength of the House of Lords is that it contains experts on many subjects who can give informed knowledge of how realistic a piece of legislation might be and how it could be implemented – this would be lost in the partisan atmosphere of an elected second chamber. Experts in their fields rarely run for Parliament; it does not seem like a good or effective idea to have career politicians revise legislation that other career politicians have put forward. Surely part of the function of the House of Lords is to offer a different point of view from the House of Commons?