There will be no more reform of the House of Lords in this session of parliament, the government has announced. This means that the remaining 93 hereditary legislators-for-life will keep their seats in the legislature for the time being.
The decision not to go ahead with a bill to remove the hereditary legislators was taken because it seemed likely that the majority of legislators-for-life who are not Labour Party supporters would overrule the wishes of the elected legislators in the House of Commons. The government also feared that its own legislators in the Commons might try to amend the bill to require that legislators be elected.
The government is going ahead with a bill to removed senior judges from the legislature, however, after an agreement with Tory legislators-for-life to limit the time for which the bill will be delayed in committee. This attempt to separate judicial and legislative functions is still expected to meet tough resistance from conservative legislators-for-life.