Two Cumbrian peers could be affected by Labour’s plans to rid the House of Lords of hereditary peers.
Cumbrians, Lord Inglewood and Lord Henley both sit in the House of Lords due to their birth right but under Labour’s plans for the modernisation of parliament, both Cumbrian peers would be forced to give up their seat in the Lords.
The House of Lords has more than 800 members with almost 100 of them sitting as hereditary peers.
Tony Blair cut the number of hereditary peers when he first came into office in 1997 and Sir Keir Starmer will attempt to cut them out altogether.
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All members of the House of Lords are unelected and are nominated by different political parties to scrutinise legislation passed by the House of Commons.
Critics of the system say that the Lords is ‘undemocratic’ and ‘unaccountable’ whilst others argue that unelected politicians are able to effectively scrutinise legislation without having to answer to the electorate.
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