HEREDITARY peer “by-elections” have been branded an “undemocratic farce” by an electoral reform group prior to results for a cross-bench vacancy being announced today.

A small number of aristocrats are still deciding who sits in the Lords despite cross-party calls to modernise and slim down the chamber.

The retirement of Earl Baldwin of Bewdley last month triggered the by-election in which just 31 peers have been allowed to vote.

The result falls in the middle of the Cabinet Office’s inaugural National Democracy Week, with timing that the Electoral Reform Society (ERS) described as highly ironic.

On Monday, the candidate list was published for a second by-election for a Conservative hereditary peer, with 11 candidates for 47 voters. This result will be announced on July 18.

Four by-elections have had more candidates than voters, including the only by-election within the Labour group of hereditary peers, which had 11 candidates and three voters, new ERS analysis shows.

The total number of votes in the history of 32 hereditary peer by-elections is 3,190, while the last 32 Commons by-elections had  931,725 votes cast.

A by-election is triggered when a hereditary peer dies or retires. Candidates are drawn from a register of hereditary peers, including only one woman, and in most cases only current peers from the same political group can vote.
   
The ERS is asking the government to fulfil its pledge for reform, following comments by Conservative frontbencher Lord Young of Cookham who said that the government “will not obstruct” a Bill by Lord Grocott seeking to axe the by-elections.
 
The last time the Bill was heard, it was filibustered by a handful of hereditary peers, who had tabled around 60 amendments.
 
ERS chief executive Darren Hughes said: “These so-called by-elections are an undemocratic farce and make mockery of our democracy.

“The fact we will find out the results of one of these sham elections during National Democracy Week is an irony that can’t be ignored.”

Green peer Jenny Jones, who was “elected” by a ballot of all party members, said in the Lords yesterday that even “staunch traditionalists are now calling for the abolition of this house.”

She asked Lord Cookham if there were any plans for reform.

He replied by claiming that proposals in her Lords Reform Bill to replace hereditary peers with 292 elected peers would result in a divided house with only those elected allowed to vote on bills.