If Starmer has no need of hereditary peers, we must remove bishops too

The state opening of the House of Lords
The state opening of the House of Lords

Time flies when you finally get into Government. After all, it has been mere months since Sir Keir Starmer was positioning himself as reformer-in-chief, using the Labour manifesto to call for measures ranging from a mandatory retirement age for peers to the abolition of the House of Lords as we know it.

Despite these bold proposals, the Government’s current legislation is limited to the removal of hereditary peers – perhaps radical Keir and his promises of “Change” disappeared into the black hole that Labour keeps talking about.

I am sure that I am not the only parliamentarian who is disappointed by Starmer’s lack of ambition, which is why I have tabled an amendment calling for the removal of bishops from the House of Lords. Whether you belong to Left or Right, it is clear as day that the bishops’ bench is out of kilter with modern Britain.

We are the only sovereign country other than the beacon of modernity that is Iran to reserve seats in its legislature for clerics. Moreover, none of the bishops are from Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland, and less than 2 per cent of the population attends an Anglican service on the average Sunday.

Of course, this leads many to ask why we cannot just allow representatives from other faiths into the House of Lords. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. Some faiths, such as Roman Catholicism, do not permit priests to sit in secular legislative bodies.

Others, such as Hinduism, lack a central hierarchy and would therefore struggle to find an appropriate representative. And these issues emerge before you even begin to prise open the Pandora’s box that is deciding how many representatives each faith would get.

In addition to not reflecting modern society, the bishops’ bench is also not necessary. First and foremost, it is not true that we rely on the Lords Spiritual to give voice to religious perspectives: parliamentarians across both Houses draw upon faith in their work and frequently raise issues of spiritual importance.

Moreover, the bishops have a drastically lower rate of participation than other peers. During the 2019-2024 Parliament, the Lords Spiritual took part in an average of 14 per cent of the divisions they were eligible for, which compares to an average of 46 per cent across all members of the House of Lords.

And yet, according to many who defend the bishops’ bench, none of this matters. To them, the value of the Lords Spiritual is more abstract: it lies in the fact that they have been part of our legislature since “time immemorial” and that to get rid of them would risk unravelling our constitutional settlement.

Aside from there simply being no evidence that removing the bishops would kickstart the downfall of the British state, I believe that keeping outdated institutions on life support rather than seeking to reform them is the real “vandalism”. This approach to governance is worthy of Miss Havisham, not of modern parliamentarians.

The crux of it is this: there are many groups within society who could theoretically make a good contribution to parliamentary life, but who are not guaranteed a seat in the legislature due to some historical anomaly. Why should the bishops be afforded this privilege? If we are getting rid of the anachronism that is hereditary peers, why not get rid of the bishops’ bench as well?

I know that I am not the only one asking this question. Over half of the British public are asking it, many within the Church of England are asking it, and the politically diverse range of MPs who have signed my amendment are asking it. So, as the Bill returns to the House of Commons, I sincerely hope Keir Starmer and his Labour party can provide a good answer.