Grumpy Tories ‘holding up’ laws in strop over plan to axe hereditary friends

Tory peers have been accused of trying to hold up legislation in the Lords to force the Government to drop plans to axe hereditary peers.

Baroness Angela Smith said Conservative peers had threatened to “wear her down” by giving long-winded speeches and laying endless amendments to frustrate key bills. But the Leader of the House Lords told the Mirror: “I’m not easily worn down”.

A Tory spokesman denied the party was dragging its feet and said peers were doing their job in holding the Government to account.

Labour wants to change the law to axe the remaining peers who inherited their titles by birth as a first step in wider Lords reform. Tony Blair’s Government revoked the 700-year-old right for hereditary peers to sit in the Lords in 1999, leaving only 92 seats as a compromise with the Tories.

But their numbers remained steady through a series of archaic by-elections. MPs overwhelmingly backed plans to scrap hereditary peers last year but the bill faces a rough ride in the Lords, with more than 100 amendments laid to the plans.

And Tory delaying tactics appear to have spread to key bills on renationalising the railways, regulating water companies and football governance.

Baroness Smith of Basildon said: “We’ve seen on other bills a sort of grumpiness that I think is about two things. It’s the hereditary peers bill, some on the Conservative side are very grumpy about it.

“But I have to say a bit of it also, they don’t like Labour being in Government.” She added: “You get a sense people are talking for too long, being too difficult and they resent legislation brought forward.”

The move is believed to be designed to put pressure on ministers to do a grubby deal to water down the plans to scrap the hereditaries.

Baroness Smith said: “I’ve had two or three cases where they’ve said, ‘we’re going to wear you down, late nights, whatever’… that’s not how we operate here. I am not easily worn down.”

She insisted there would be no stitch up. “It was a deal that got us to this point,” she said. “You can’t have a stitch up because you’ve got to be very open with what’s happening.”

Her next step is to impose a mandatory retirement age of 80, and to create a participation requirement to weed out lazy members, which were both manifesto commitments.

This could be done without legislation if the House of Lords can agree, she said. “I’d like to move quite quickly on that,” she said. “Let’s see if we can come up with something and do it ourselves first.”

A number of Labour members could be affected by an age requirement, including prominent refugee campaigner Lord Dubs, 92, who fled the Nazis on the Kindertransport in 1939.

“I don’t think anybody is saying peers over the age of 80 don’t make an enormous contribution,” she said. “But you also want to bring new people in to gain experience as well.”

Baroness Smith said the size of the House of Lords needs to be reduced – as there are currently 833 peers, more than the 650 MPs in the House of Commons. She admitted these changes wouldn’t be enough to reduce the bloated upper chamber but said Keir Starmer had been clear it is a “job of work” not a “glory bauble”.

And she said there would be a hard line on any peers breaking the rules by lobbying for paid interests.

Labour’s manifesto also committed to replacing the House of Lords with “an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations”. But the Government has given no timescale for the plans.

Baroness Smith admitted Lords reforms weren’t a number one priority for the Government. She said: “But that doesn’t mean you ignore them. Once you ignore the things that are not top order then you’re not dealing with the country in a round. So it’s not top priority but it is a priority.”

A Conservative Party spokesman said: “The Government’s claims are completely false. We have had just a single day in Committee on a Bill which has major implications to the composition of Parliament. We must have time to consider carefully all the wider implications of moving towards an entirely patronage chamber.

“When Baroness Smith was Leader of the Opposition, Labour peers set the all-time record for most Government defeats on a Bill (34), most Government defeats in a day (14) and most Government defeats in a session (128 in 2021-22), tabling 1,249 amendments to just one Bill over 15 days of Committee.

“The job of the Lords is to call the Government of the day to account and suggest improvements to legislation. That is all that is happening.”