This petition was submitted during the 2010-2015 parliament
Rejected petition House of Lords Reform: Petition for no reserved seats for hereditary Lords and bishops in parliament
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Currently, 92 seats are permanently reserved for hereditary Lords and 26 seats are permanently reserved for bishops.
This is:
1 Undemocratic: Hereditary peers and bishop peers are unaccountable to the public, have not been appointed on merit and have not been voted in.
2 Unrepresentative: The number of seats reserved for hereditary and bishop peers is hugely out of proportion to the number of people they represent.
3 Sexist: Of the 92 hereditary Lord seats only 2 are women and of the 26 bishop seats none are women.
4 Irrelevant: Reserved seats are unnecessary as hereditary Lords and bishops can be appointed as "life peers" through merit. Politics is about moral choices represented by all Lords and MPs.
Sign the petition for a fair and prompt reform of the House of Lords to ensure every seat is open to all of society, with no privileges to those with special birthrights or specific beliefs.
Visit www.holr.org.uk for more information.
This petition was rejected
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