- Thursday, March 06, 2025
By: Shubham Ghosh
British leader of the opposition Keir Starmer has vowed to abolish the House of Lords in his first term if he gets elected as the country’s prime minister.
Speaking to Sky News, the 60-year-old Labour leader said his party “do want to abolish the House of Lords”, adding that he does not believe anybody could “defend” the institution.
He told the channel that “it is one of the recommendations”.
“What we’re going to do after today is now consult on those recommendations, test them, and in particular, look at how can they be implemented,” Starmer said.
When he was asked if he hoped that the House of Lords will be abolished within his first term as the premier, Starmer said he did.
“Because what I asked when I asked Gordon Brown to set up the commission to do this, I said what I want is recommendations that are capable of being implemented in the first term,” he was quoted as saying.
“We’re going to get one shot at fixing our economy and fixing our politics and I want to make sure we get it exactly right,” Starmer, who is looking to make gains at a time when the ruling Conservative Party has witnessed challenges on many fronts.
However, Tory peer Lord Norton requested for caution over the proposed reform to parliament’s second chamber following suggestions that it should be replaced with elected representatives.
“One has to be wary of some Big Bang reform, grand reform, which often takes the form of displacement activity – the nation’s got problems, people must come up with constitutional reform because it’s a fairly simple, straightforward proposal, rather than actually getting down to the real issues,” he told Times Radio.
The proposal forms part of Labour’s blueprint for a “New Britain”, outlined in the report of its commission on the UK’s future which is headed by former prime minister Brown.
Unveiling the report at a joint press conference with Starmer in Leeds, Brown said the work proposed “the biggest transfer of power out of Westminster and Whitehall” that “our country has seen”.
“You are being held back. Held back by a system that hoards power in Westminster,” Starmer said.
“A system which smugly thinks it knows what skills, transport, planning and job support West Yorkshire needs better than the people who live here.
“I’ve long been convinced that this broken model has held back our politics and held back our economy. And I’m determined we unbind ourselves and free our potential,” he added.
