House of Lords
23 October 2026
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Chamber House of Lords
01:09 - 01:20
Speaker 1
Second reading of the House of Lords Alternative Second Chamber Bill. Baroness Smith of Llanfaes.
01:20 - 03:01
Speaker 2
My Lords, I beg to move that this bill be now read a second time. At its heart, this is a simple and modest bill. It asks the government to do something that they have already promised to do: consult on proposals for replacing the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber and then report transparently on what they have heard. But it does something else that is just as important. It requires the government to not just consult, but to respond.
It requires ministers to tell Parliament and the public what they intend to do next. Because the purpose of this bill is not to produce another report destined for a shelf in Whitehall. We've got plenty of those already. The purpose is to make sure a process begins and, crucially, that it keeps going. The ball must keep moving.
The future of this House has been debated for longer than most of us can remember. Every political party has, at one point or another, argued that the House of Lords should be reformed, replaced, or abolished altogether. We've never been short of ideas and we've never been short of debate, but we have been short of action. That is why this bill matters. The government was elected on a manifesto commitment to replace the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that better represents the nations and regions of the UK and to consult on proposals for achieving that aim.
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