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Comment by skissane | Hacker News Reader

> My guess is that all those who are actually useful will get "grandfathered in" by this legislation making them life peers

The government made a political deal with the hereditary peers-drop their fight against this bill, and in exchange the government will grant a subset of them life peerages

But that political deal is just an informal extralegal “understanding”, it isn’t actually in the text of the bill-having the bill text grant someone a life peerage would upset the status of peerages as a royal prerogative, and they don’t want to do that

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> The government made a political deal with the hereditary peers-drop their fight against this bill, and in exchange the government will grant a subset of them life peerages

Wouldn't a "deal" theoretically benefit both sides? That one doesn't offer the hereditary peers anything they don't already have.

Only 92 of the 842 peers are hereditary currently, so it’s not really necessary to convince them to agree; the deal only needs to be seen as fair enough by the other peers. Or really, it only needs to be seen as fair enough to the House of Commons.

> Only 92 of the 842 peers are hereditary currently, so it’s not really necessary to convince them to agree;

As I understand it, it was necessary (in order to pass the bill without the delay the Lords can impose) to secure a deal on the hereditary peers (not with them), because the Conservatives (the largest Lords faction) and many of the cross-benchers among the life peers, a sufficient number in total to delay the bill (the Lords can't actually block it permanently) oppose the bill, not just a group among the existing hereditary peers.

> Wouldn't a "deal" theoretically benefit both sides? That one doesn't offer the hereditary peers anything they don't already have.

They don't have any expectation against losing their seats entirely when hereditary peers are ejected from the House, and, even with a sufficient number of life peers voting with them, they couldn't actually prevent such a bill from passing, only delay it. Securing a commitment of life seats is getting something they didn't have.

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