Scrap automatic right of bishops to sit in Lords, says Harriet Harman
Scrap automatic right of bishops to sit in Lords, says Harriet Harman
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Former Labour MP puts forward amendment to reform bill aiming to end privilege for 26 C of E bishops. Church of England bishops who sit in the House of Lords by right should be removed as part of the government’s changes to the second chamber, according to the veteran legislator Harriet Harman.
![[Harriet Harman posing for a picture in a garden with bushes behind]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/24cb3825d71c36acc6fddcf6f3e91be99aca94a5/608_444_5521_3313/master/5521.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Harman, who was a Labour MP for more than 40 years until 2024, has put forward an amendment to the government’s hereditary peers bill, aimed at ending the automatic right of 26 bishops to sit in the Lords. Their presence was an anachronism that “undermines the legitimacy” of the second chamber, Harman told the Guardian. “It is outdated that we have legislative scrutiny carried out by representatives of one Christian denomination. The only other legislature that has religious theocrats as members by right is Iran,” she said.
The government was seeking to increase the legitimacy of the Lords by removing the remaining hereditary peers, but that was undermined by the automatic seats for bishops, she said. Harman’s amendment says the Lords Spiritual, as the 26 bishops are known, must be removed from membership of the Lords, but there should be no bar on individual bishops and archbishops being appointed as life peers.
“If we were starting afresh, I don’t think anyone would give bishops an automatic right to sit in parliament,” she said. The argument that the bishops provided a moral element in the Lords was spurious, she added. “I don’t think anyone in 2025 believes that morality is the exclusive preserve of the Church of England. This is not about individual bishops or whether they make a good contribution [to the Lords], and it does not arise out of the C of E’s abuse scandals.”.
