Changes coming to the UK’s House of Lords

0:00This message comes from Carvana, who makes buying and financing your next car easy. Thousands of vehicles, terms up front, and 100 % online. Even get it delivered to your door. Buy your car the easy way. with Carvana. Delivery fee may apply. Today on State of the World. Changes coming to the UK's House of Lords.

0:24You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. I'm Greg Dixon. The Upper House of Britain's Parliament is called the House of Lords, and it's full of old traditions. Some clerks occasionally wear powdered wigs. There's a gold throne for the king, and lawmakers address each other as noble lord or baroness. But one tradition carries real privilege. The legislature still includes dozens of aristocrats who inherit their seats. But not for long. Here's NPR's Lauren Frayer in London. Hello. Hi. I'm Troy. I'm Lauren.

1:03Hi, Lauren. Charles Courtney grew up in a village in southwest England. As a young man, he left the drizzle behind and moved to California. I am a surfer. Obviously in California, I lived 10 years in L.A., so I surfed Topanga Beach very often. He met his American, now ex-wife, in a bar in Vegas and didn't tell her much about his background. Just took her on a trip home to England one day. Yeah, two months maybe. I just drove her up the drive. Drove her up the driveway of his family's 12th century castle.

1:37Is there a moat? There's a moat. Because the man who insists I just call him Charlie is also... The Earl of Devon, and I live here at Poundrum Castle. Forgive me. Am I supposed to curtsy? No, you don't need forgiveness for being an American. He inherited all this through a male bloodline. So even though he's got three older sisters, he gets the title and castle. It was besieged twice, once in 1450 and again during the English Civil War in the 1640s. A sign in the entry says, long live the Earl, as in him. I was very embarrassed when that got put up. Now, the gig also comes with political power, a seat in the House of Lords, the upper chamber of Parliament, equivalent to the U.S.

2:19Senate. Courtney is one of 92 lords out of more than 800 in Parliament who have inherited their seats. This is part of a feudal system that goes back to the Norman conquest of 1066, when monarchs began doling out land in exchange for military service and council. We had the Wars of the Roses, the House of York, the House of Lancaster. In some ways, Courtney is the stereotypical lord. White, male, he went to Eton and Cambridge, he lives in his castle. But in other ways, he's different. He got beheaded in 1538. He's lobbied to change the rules so that women can inherit titles. One of his great, great, hard to say how many greats, uncles, was exiled for being gay.

3:06And Courtney offers up his castle for LGBTQ weddings and public concerts. Coldplay, Mumford and Sons, Stormzy. And in the House of Lords... Not content. Not content. I think the not contents have it. He once gave a speech calling the legislature itself... ...gendered, discriminatory... The title Lord for Lawmaker changed the name, he said in a speech to Parliament. ...to step away from the negative associations with nobility and high rank associated with land and power... This spring, Parliament is doing just that, by kicking out Courtney and the rest of the Lords who've inherited their seats.

3:45In a compromise, some of them will be allowed to stay till they die, but won't be allowed to pass down their seats to descendants. It only took a thousand or so years, right? Right. The patriarchy puts up lots of barriers to its removal. But come on, if you really believe in equal rights, what on earth am I doing? It is seemingly so wild that anybody in this day and age could inherit the right to legislate. It's quite bonkers. Eleanor Dowdy wrote a history of the modern British aristocracy. And she says that despite a civil war in the 1600s, Britain never had a French revolution, never beheaded its equivalent of Marie Antoinette and her friends.

4:26We had our civil war and we did chop the king's head off, but we didn't get rid of his peers at all. We never go that far. We don't go as far as France. So they've just sort of carried on. And so the medieval aristocracy remains largely intact here. They own disproportionate amounts of land on which they collect rent, fueling intergenerational wealth. They dominate elite private schools and cultural institutions, which is not a good look for democracy. And so the House of Lords power was scaled back in 1911 and again in 49. In 1999, Tony Blair phased out most hereditary seats, and the last 92 of them are now being abolished.

5:11More room for new faces. I'm Carmen Smith, also known as Baroness Smith of Sandvice. Carmen Smith is the youngest member of the House of Lords. And I took my seat when I was 27. The average age of members there are 71 and it's a chamber of 70 % men. So I suppose I stand out a little bit. She also has pink hair and grew up in public housing. A lot of people in the Lords do come from a very different life to me. I don't get invited to their houses. Even those who don't inherit their seats, they still aren't elected. Most Lords get appointed by the Prime Minister. There are even seats reserved for bishops.

5:53Smith got her seat allocated through a Welsh national party. But she calls that unfair. Don't stop with the inheritance, guys. Reform the whole house. Make them all elected, she says. That's the mission at the moment. I'm working to get rid of my job and I don't believe that my position should exist. I've been reforming the institution from the inside. Such reform was Prime Minister Keir Starmer's campaign promise two years ago. Abolish hereditary seats, then set a mandatory retirement age for the Lords and eventually replace them altogether with an upper chamber that's more representative of the country.

6:34Back in his castle, the Earl of Devon acknowledges his time is up. Yes, I'm not very diverse, right? It does need to be more representative and it really needs more voices. But he still wants to be part of the conversation about reform and what to replace the lords with. He's got lots of ideas, elect seats by region or by profession, maybe even through a lottery, a jury duty type system. After centuries of family service and government, he says he can offer something. A little bit of that longer-term memory, because we work in generations, not in five-year electoral cycles. We are, by our definition, somewhat longer-term.

7:16And as we walk out of his castle, chatting... ...to honour other stories and other peoples and such... The chimes of a very old, very fancy grandfather clock interrupt us.

7:30Does that mean it's your tea time or something? As if calling time on my visit and on this chapter of British history. Lauren Freyer, NPR News at Powderham Castle in Devon, England.

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