Ministers will take a wrecking ball to centuries of tradition when they remove the last remaining hereditary dukes, earls, viscounts and barons from the House of Lords.
Some of the titles date back to medieval times and Sir Keir Starmer has declared their presence ‘outdated and indefensible’ as he completes reforms started by Tony Blair’s government in 1999.
The Blair government revoked the 700-year-old right of all 800 or so hereditary peers to sit in the Upper House. They were reduced in number to 92, elected from the whole group, and were allowed to remain until a consensus could be reached whereby they would be phased out altogether.
Downing Street Chief of Staff Sue Gray and her MP son Liam Conlon, who’s been appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Transport
Now Starmer has decided to axe them all in one fell swoop in his latest foray into class war after his spiteful VAT raid on private schools.
But isn’t Sir Keir – the first knight of the realm to occupy 10 Downing Street since the Old Etonian Sir Alec Douglas-Home in 1963 – being somewhat hypocritical? For even as he ousts nobles who owe their place in parliament to their blood line, the hereditary principle is alive and flourishing in Labour which is stuffed with the offspring of prominent MPs, former MPs and Party grandees.
Take Liam Conlon, the new MP for Beckenham and Penge who’s been appointed as a Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Department for Transport. It so happens that Conlon is the son of Starmer’s highly controversial chief of staff Sue Gray, the former senior civil servant whose Partygate report led to Boris Johnson’s resignation.
Liam has already enjoyed a share of controversy in his short time in government. Last month, The Mail on Sunday revealed that he accepted a £4,000 donation from train drivers’ union Aslef just months before his department offered them an inflation-busting pay rise.
Another new MP is Hamish Falconer, elected to parliament for the first time in July as the member for Lincoln. He is already a government minister at the Foreign Office – which seems a remarkably rapid promotion even for someone who is an experienced civil servant.
He is the eldest son of Labour bigwig Lord Falconer of Thoroton who was a flatmate of a young Tony Blair when they were both training for the Bar.
Georgia Gould, pictured with Sir Keir Starmer, is a minister in the Cabinet Office responsible for public sector reform. Her mother Gail Rebuck has been a Labour peer since 2014
Tony Benn, left, with his wife and parents. In 1963 he renounced his Viscount Stansgate title, inherited from his father William Wedgwood Benn, right, so he could remain an MP
When Blair became Prime Minister in 1997 he made Falconer Solicitor General, gave him a peerage into the bargain, and then promoted him to the even grander role of Lord Chancellor sitting in the Cabinet. He also served in Starmer’s shadow cabinet.
Another remarkably swift promotion was Georgia Gould’s. Elected for the first time in July in the seat of Queen’s Park and Maida Vale, she’s already a minister in the Cabinet Office responsible for public sector reform.
She used to be the leader of Camden Council whose most prominent local MP is one Keir Starmer.
Who is she related to? Why, her father’s the late Lord (Philip) Gould one of the founders of New Labour, the vehicle which swept Blair to power in 1997. And Georgia Gould’s mother Gail Rebuck, the chairman of Random House publishers, has been a Labour peer since 2014. How very cosy.
The strength of family connections is not a new thing in the Labour Party, of course. One of its grandest of grandees and another key character in New Labour is Lord (Peter) Mandelson whose grandfather was Labour Foreign Secretary in the 1950s.
Another of the best known among these red princes and princesses is Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn who is son of the late Labour grandee Tony Benn. In 1963 his father renounced his own Viscount Stansgate title, inherited from his father William Wedgwood Benn, so he could remain an MP.
Hilary Benn became Labour MP for Leeds Central in 1999 while his father, an MP for 50 years, was still in the Commons.
After Benn, one of the most recognisable names in the Labour political dynasty is Kinnock. The new Minister of State for Care is Stephen Kinnock, the MP for the Welsh constituency of Aberafan Maesteg, who is the son of Neil, the Labour leader from 1983 to 1992.
Kinnock senior is now in the House of Lords even though he used to campaign for its abolition. Stephen’s late mother Glenys was a Labour MEP and then also became a member of the House of Lords where she served as a Minister of State. Stephen’s sister Rachel was a key adviser in the private office of Ed Miliband when he was Labour leader.
The Kinnocks have always made it a family affair. In 2011 Stephen’s wife Helle Thorning-Schmidt became Prime Minister of Denmark.
There are many more family connections. A Labour MP for 22 years, John Cryer was chairman of the parliamentary Labour Party for nine of them. He was elevated to the House of Lords after the election by Starmer.
His late father Bob was the Labour MP for Keighley. And after Cryer senior died, his wife – John’s mother – later became MP for the same constituency.
Meanwhile, Lord Cryer’s own wife Ellie Reeves was first elected as an MP in 2010 and is now chairwoman of the Labour Party who attends Starmer’s Cabinet.
Her elder sister is Rachel Reeves the new Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Douglas Alexander, who lost his seat in 2015, returned to parliament at the election this summer and was immediately made a Trade Minister by Starmer.
He is the younger brother of Wendy Alexander, the former leader of the Scottish Labour Party. Their father Reverend Douglas Alexander was a lifelong friend of Donald Dewar, who was Blair’s first Scottish Secretary, and the original First Minister in the Scottish parliament.
Rev Alexander conducted Dewar’s funeral service in 2000, which was attended by the entire Labour Cabinet.
It’s also a family affair for newly elected Edinburgh East MP Chris Murray. His mother Margaret Curran was a Scottish Labour MP who lost her seat in 2015.
In Penrith and the Solway there is a new Labour MP Markus Campbell-Savours. It’s a familiar name to Parliament watchers. His father Dale was the Labour MP for Workington for 20 years and he’s been a member of the House of Lords for 23 years.
Chancellor Rachel Reeves with her sister Ellie, now the chairwoman of the Labour Party
New Minister of State for Care Stephen Kinnock, second from right with his mother Glenys and sister Rachel, is the son of former Labour leader Neil, left
At the 2019 election, meanwhile, Rachel Hopkins became Labour MP for Luton South. At the same election her father Kelvin stood down as MP for Luton North. Meanwhile, Left-wing Labour MP Richard Burgon, elected in 2015, is the nephew of a former Labour MP.
There were also nostalgic celebrations in the family of Peter Dowd when he was elected Labour MP for Bootle in 2015. He is the great-nephew of Simon Mahon who held the same seat for Labour between 1955-79.
The Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is the granddaughter of Frank Byers, who was a Dorset MP after the war.
Yet despite all these Labour hereditary connections, in May Baroness Smith of Basildon who is now the Leader of the House of Lords told a parliamentary hearing. ‘It is hard to
justify taking a place in the legislature on the basis of who your parents, grandparents etc. were.’
So while the hereditary peers in the House of Lords are on borrowed time, it appears that in the Commons it’s no longer who you know in the Labour Party it’s who your parents are which can make all the difference.
As one Tory observed yesterday. ‘Under Keir Starmer’s Labour, it’s hereditary peers out – hereditary MPs in.’
