Silent minority: 15 peers claimed £585k while not speaking in a single Lords debate
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/11/silent-minority-15-peers-claimed-not-speaking-lords-debate
Posted by socratic-meth
Silent minority: 15 peers claimed £585k while not speaking in a single Lords debate
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/mar/11/silent-minority-15-peers-claimed-not-speaking-lords-debate
Posted by socratic-meth
12 Comments
> Labour has set out plans to remove the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the chamber. Since 2019, hereditary peers have claimed more in allowances and expenses on average than non-hereditary peers (£95,800 per hereditary peer, compared with £92,300 for non-hereditaries).
> Hereditary peers also spoke less often (155 times on average, compared with 191 for other peers) and were less likely to pose written questions to the government (18 letters on average, compared with 45 for other peers).
The fact we still have a house of lords let alone hereditary peers is a joke. Incredibly undemocratic
The House of Lords should be abolished and restructured, and it should be filled only with individuals who have made significant contributions to improving the lives of UK citizens.
A sitting PM should not get to decide who gets a peerage. This is how we ended up with a ‘Lord of Siberia’
It is not hereditary peers that are the issue – many take the job seriously because they have nothing else interesting to do. There are only 92 of them, a drop in the ocean.
It is the huge numbers of non-contributing, political appointees who are just there to network, schmooze and use the facilities that we should be worried about. You can probably identify 300-400 crossbench and political peers that do regularly turn up to work when their expertise is needed. The rest ought to be sacked.
These free loading parasites, they should get real jobs! Instead of claiming benefits, sitting around all day and being a burden on the tax payers!
While Trump talks about people claiming money for nothing, we have our government giving itself money for nothing
Instead of going after these individuals they make the disabled scapegoats for the problem.. If we got rid of the House of Lords we would save a ton of money to help with the welfare bill. Also a land value tax would be great too. Liz Kendall claimed 3k in heating expenses alone… Maybe the biggest benefit cheats are actually in Whitehall.. It’s easy to blame the vulnerable when they have no voice.
The House of Lords, when it works well, provides an excellent check and challenge on legislation, and can force the government to think again about key parts of its legislative agenda. And if needs be, the Commons can force through legislation after the third attempt at passing.
Sadly, the Lords is now stacked full of people who want the nice feeling and kudos associated with being called a Lord or Baroness, but not the responsibility of public service. It gets packed with party loyalists, donors, and in the case of Boris Johnson women he finds attractive. To the point where the unelected side of Parliament outnumbers the elected.
Personally, I would suggest the following as much-needed reforms:
* Tie the number of peers to the number of MPs in the Commons. Want more peers? You have to have more MPs in the Commons.
* This number can be equalised by looking at attendance at Lords debates for the last 5 years. Those with the lowest number of appearances get binned off. They can keep their title if they like.
* Get rid of hereditary peers and religious figures in the Lords for good. They have no place in there in the modern world
* Every 2 years, the bottom 25% of Lords in terms of attendance get removed. Only the public can nominate people to replace them, based on a sound record of public service. Who actually gets in could be voted on, or decided by some kind of citizens panel, I’m not fussed.
* Appointees nominated by parties should be limited to 50% of the total number of Lords, and roughly split by their representation in the Commons. If parties want to nominate someone to go into the Lords, its a strict one-in-one-out policy. They get to choose who gets the boot.
I may have thought about this a fair bit.
There are other things that go on aside from a debate. Plenty of committees etc etc. This title is being disingenuous
Now hereditary peers are going there will be a lot more impetus to just close the whole thing. It has become a chamber for donors, aides, mistresses and other irrelevancies. Starmer had a chance to reform the Lords to be more technocratic and bottled it.
If anyone is interested in the effectiveness of the Lords actually holding the government to account, and potential options for reform, I highly recommend the work of UCL’s [Professor Meg Russell](https://www.ucl.ac.uk/constitution-unit/news/2023/mar/launch-new-report-house-lords-reform-navigating-obstacles)
They are archaic, antidemocratic, classist and more but also they do a much better job than MPs in scrutinising legislation, challenging government policy and taking longer term outlooks.
Reform, absolutely. But replacement with another elected house or just abolishment is, ironically, likely to hurt our liberal democracy more than it helps.
Do you really think that what is said in session is the entirety of what happens in the Lords?