According to a Financial Times report most unelected legislators will keep their seats in Parliament if the Labour Party wins the next general election.
Only the 92 hereditary legislators will be removed in the party’s first five years in power. More than 700 other legislators will remain.
This is despite Labour leader Keir Starmer’s previous description of the House of Lords as “undemocratic” and “indefensible”. Starmer uses the feudal title of “Sir Keir Starmer”.
In a minor continuance of their unwarranted privileges the current gang of lords will be allowed to keep the passes that allow access to parliamentary buildings.
The hereditary legislators are paid £342 for each day they attend parliament. When travel expenses are added they cost the people of the UK £21mn a year.
Although the hereditary legislators may be removed even more unelected legislators will sit in Parliament when more “life peers” are appointed at the end of the current term of parliament. Some of these may be current hereditary legislators if they are nominated by the Conservative Party.
Twenty-six clerics of the state church will also keep their seats in the legislature.
The Labour Party says that it will abolish the House of Lords at a later date.