Time to kick noblemen out of the House of Lords, say three North East MPs

This week the House of Lords is helping make laws about the future of council housing and whether to let child refugees into the UK.

But some members are still there partly because of what their ancestors did hundreds of years previously.

Now, three North East MPs have backed calls to axe the 92 remaining “hereditary peers”, as they are called, in the House of Lords.

They put their name to legislation which would kick the hereditary peers out.

Examples include Lord Fairfax of Cameron, a Conservative peer who is eligible to sit in the Lords because his ancestor, Thomas Fairfax, swore allegiance to King James I following the death of Elizabeth I in 1603.

It means he has the right to vote on laws which affect us all.

Earl Attlee is a Conservative peer - who is an hereditary peer because his grandfather was a Prime Minister. But his grandfather, Clement Attlee, was a Labour politician.

Hereditary peers were once guaranteed a seat in the House of Lords. Today, only 92 of them are allowed in, and they are chosen by holding an election.

But the only people allowed to vote in the election are hereditary peers from the same party.

For example, earlier this month Liberal Democrat politician Viscount Thurso became the latest member of the House of Lords - because he won an election only three people could vote in.

The voters were the three existing hereditary peers in the House of Lords from his party.

They included Lord Addington, who is in the House of Lords because his ancestor, a businessman and Conservative Member of Parliament, was given a title in 1887.

They also included the 10th Earl of Glasgow, who can trace his title back to 1703.

And the third voter was the Earl of Oxford and Asquith, who is the grandson of the former Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith.

MPs who backed a proposed law to kick them out included North Durham MP Kevan Jones, Sunderland Central MP Julie Elliott and Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland MP Tom Blenkinsop.

The law was proposed by Welsh MP David Hanson. He said: “Let us end this farce and ensure that we have an elected House of Commons, and not a House of Lords that is based on the hereditary principle.”