Is the government on course to introduce a new participation requirement for House of Lords members?

Updated 20 November 2024
Pledge

“We will introduce a new participation requirement [for House of Lords members]”

Labour manifesto, page 108

Our verdict

The government has said it is looking at how to deliver this commitment.

What does the pledge mean? 

Labour’s manifesto pledges to “introduce a new participation requirement” for members of the House of Lords.

There are various ways that “participation” in House of Lords business could be measured, such as:

  • attendance (the number of sitting days a member attends)
  • votes (the number of votes a member participates in)
  • spoken contributions (how often a member speaks in the House of Lords)
  • committee activity (the contribution a member makes to the work of Lords select committees).

Currently, members are required to attend the House at least once in a parliamentary session (provided the session is six months or longer).

Labour hasn’t confirmed how it plans to define “participation”, or what it would consider an acceptable rate of participation.

The party’s manifesto does not indicate when this change will take place, so we assume this pledge will be met if a participation requirement is in place by the end of the current parliament.

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What progress has been made?

On 23 July Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government Lord Khan of Burnley told the House of Lords that the government was “looking at how we can deliver the manifesto commitment to introduce this participation requirement, building on existing rules that require Members to attend once every parliamentary Session”.

We’ve asked the government whether any timeframe has been established for this change to be introduced, or if any further progress has been made, and will update this page if we receive a response.

Did you spot something that needs updating? Contact us.

As we develop this Government Tracker we’re keen to hear your feedback. We’ll be keeping the Tracker up to date and adding more pledges in the coming months.

Government Tracker

Full Fact is monitoring the government’s delivery on its promises

Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.

Sir Keir Starmer, Prime Minister – 24 September 2024