Pledge
“Labour will also introduce a mandatory retirement age. At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords”
Our verdict
A select committee has recommended a retirement age of 80 be phased in over five years, beginning on 8 July 2029, but we don’t yet know if this recommendation will be accepted and implemented by the government.
Most members of the House of Lords are appointed for life (though since 2014 they have been allowed to retire). The exceptions to this are the ‘Lords Spiritual’—the 26 Church of England archbishops and bishops entitled to sit in the House, who must retire at the age of 70.
As part of a wider commitment to reform the House of Lords, Labour’s 2024 manifesto pledged to change the rules so that: “At the end of the Parliament in which a member reaches 80 years of age, they will be required to retire from the House of Lords.”
The maximum length of a parliament is five years, which means that under these rules a peer who turned 80 just after the start of a new parliament would theoretically be able to remain in the House of Lords until they were 85 (rather than having to retire immediately upon reaching the age of 80).
Analysis by the House of Lords Library in November 2024 stated: “Assuming no changes in the current complement of life peers, including that no current life peers leave the House and no further life peers join the House, 301 (42.1%) of the House’s 715 life peers would be aged 80 or over at dissolution in 2029.” (These figures will change over the course of the parliament.)
Labour’s manifesto does not indicate when this change will take place, so we assume this pledge will be met if a retirement age is in place by the end of the current parliament.
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In December 2025, the Lords agreed to establish a select committee to consider and make recommendations on Labour’s proposals for House of Lords reform, including a retirement age and new participation requirement, which Labour’s manifesto also commits to introducing.
The committee’s report was published on 15 July 2026. It recommended that a retirement age of 80 be phased in over five years, and that members aged 85 would retire first, with the age of retirement lowered by one each year until it reaches 80. It recommended that this process should begin on 8 July 2029, and said this method would avoid a “cliff edge of departures” and ensure the Lords “retains the numbers, expertise, and institutional memory to continue to discharge its functions effectively”.
The government said it would consider the committee’s recommendations on this and other proposals for Lords reform and respond “later this year”.
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.
Later this year I will bring forward a new plan for Britain. A ten-year plan, laying out a path from where we are now to where I believe we all want Britain to be.
Andy Burnham, Prime Minister – 20 July 2026
Progress displayed publicly—so every single person in this country can judge our performance on actions, not words.
Sir Keir Starmer, then-Prime Minister – 24 September 2024