For centuries an odd tradition lay dormant in our democracy.
A number of nobleman have had the chance to sit in parliament, simply by birthright – 92 seats in the House of Lords are eligible to male heirs in specific families and 88 men have taken these seats and currently sit in the second chamber to vote on legislation.
It is not known exactly when this quirk in our parliamentary system started but Sir Keir Starmer‘s government is trying to end it.
The prime minister has said that the right to sit in the second chamber bestowed at birth is an “indefensible” principle and his government have started the process to end hereditary peers for good.
It will mean that those with hereditary peerages will have to be part of the process that gets them voted out of a job they had previously been entitled to for the rest of their life.
The last of the hereditaries
We meet the Earl of Devon who has one of the oldest hereditary peerages.
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He can trace his family title back to the Saxons, but the right to sit in the House of Lords came much later – he says granted in 1142 for supporting the first female sovereign, Empress Matilda.
He is the 38th Earl of Devon since then and the last to sit in the Lords as a hereditary.
Image: Powderham Castle in Devon
Image: The Earl of Devon can trace his family back to the Saxons
His castle in Devon places him in touch with the community he represents – it is one of the main reasons he feels strongly that he adds value to parliament.
He argues he and his peers bring a certain life experience with them that the political appointees do not.
He says there is a greater regional representation within the UK and he has a deeper understanding of the historical constitutional workings of parliament that comes from passing knowledge from generation to generation.
“I certainly feel that the role that the hereditary peers play in the House of Lords is exemplary,” he says.
He greatly defends the idea of service that he and his peers strive for but he also says there is a social purpose and social value to the hereditary principle as the monarch is the epitome of it.
“I don’t think that Keir Starmer is a republican but it does beg the question of once the hereditaries go is the king next,” he says.
Image: Baron Strathclyde is one of the newer heriditaries
By contrast, Lord Strathclyde has one of the newest hereditary peerages.
He has not only participated fully as a member of the Lords but also served in previous Conservative governments in senior roles.
He believes this latest intervention by the government is a purely political move.
“I think the real reason why the government wants to get rid of them is because most of them are not members of the Labour Party,” he says.
“So it’s a smash and grab raid on the constitution. Get rid of your opponents and allow the prime minister to control who entered the House of Lords.
“I can guarantee you that once this bill is through and becomes law, there will be no further reform of the House of Lords no matter what ministers say.”
Image: The Earl of Devon
It is true that over half of hereditary peers are Conservatives and astonishingly few are Labour – there are only four.
But removing the hereditaries doesn’t change the composition of the Lords all that much.
The Lords is 70% men, which would only drop 3% once these peers are removed, and the percentage of Conservative peers overall in the house only drops by 2% if all the hereditaries leave overnight.
Broader Reform
Reform has been talked about since the 1700s when there was an attempt to cap the size of the swollen chamber now at more than 800 members.
But despite successive governments promising reform, the House has only got larger.
Image: Baroness Smith
Hereditary peers have long maintained that once the government passes this first stage of reform they will be less motivated by other opportunities to modernise the second chamber.
In 1999, Blair culled the amount of hereditary peerages (having previously promised to get rid of them all).
While 650 departed, a deal was struck for 92 to remain with replacements when these peers died or retired and filled by a bizarre system of byelections, where the only eligible candidates were hereditary peers.
The current leader of the Lords, Baroness Smith, says the elections are a bizarre, almost shameful part of our democracy and compares them to the Dunny-on-the-Wold in Blackadder where there is only one eligible voter in the entire constituency.
While the government’s aim to abolish these peerages has finally stepped up a gear, it is also true that Labour has watered down promises on broader reform in the Lords.
Pre-election, it had floated the idea of abolishing the second chamber altogether.
In the manifesto the party modified that to instead reducing the scale of the Lords through a retirement age, but that was not in the King’s speech and no timeline for those objectives has been given by the government.
Baroness Smith insists these are still commitments and the government is currently looking at how to implement them, though it does seem to be moving at a much slower pace than this first stage of removing the hereditary peers who, it seems, will hang up their ancient robes for good at the end of this parliamentary session.
Australia’s financial intelligence agency has told inactive registered crypto exchanges to withdraw their registrations or risk having them canceled over fears that the dormant firms could be used for scams.
There are currently 427 crypto exchanges registered with the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Centre (AUSTRAC), but the agency said on April 29 that it suspects a significant number are inactive and possibly vulnerable to being bought and co-opted by criminals.
The agency is contacting any so-called digital currency exchanges (DCEs) that appear to no longer be trading, and AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas said they’ll be told to “use it or lose it.”
“Businesses registered with AUSTRAC are required to keep their details up to date; this includes details about services that are no longer provided,” he added.
AUSTRAC CEO Brendan Thomas says scammers can use inactive crypto firms to appear legitimate. Source: AUSTRAC
Businesses wanting to offer Australians conversions between cash and crypto, including crypto ATM providers, must first register with AUSTRAC, which monitors for crimes including money laundering, terror financing and tax evasion.
The agency can cancel a registration if it has reasonable grounds to believe the business is no longer active or offering crypto-related services.
Ten firms have had their AUSTRAC registration canceled since 2019, with the most recent being FTX Express in June 2024, the local subsidiary of the collapsed crypto exchange FTX.
AUSTRAC to launch public list of registered exchanges
Following its blitz on inactive crypto exchanges, AUSTRAC said it will publish a list of registered exchanges to help Australians verify legitimate providers.
Thomas said the goal is to make it harder for criminals to scam people and improve the integrity and accuracy of AUSTRAC’s register.
“If a DCE does intend to offer a service, they need to contact us otherwise we will cancel the registration and this information will be added to the register,” he said.
“Members of the public should feel confident that they can identify legitimate cryptocurrency providers that are registered and subject to regulatory oversight and that we are driving criminals out of this industry,” Thomas added.
In February, the Anti-Money Laundering regulator took action against 13 remittance service providers and crypto exchanges, with over 50 others still being investigated regarding possible compliance issues.
Six providers were refused registration renewal on the grounds that key personnel were either convicted, prosecuted, or charged with a serious offense.
In March, the government proposed a new crypto framework regulating exchanges under existing financial services laws ahead of a federal election slated for May 3.
The government wants councils to crush more vans used to fly-tip rubbish, as it announces a crackdown on the illegal dumping of waste.
No new funding is being given to local authorities for the initiatives, with ministers saying the seven percent raise announced in the budget can be used.
As part of the announcement, the government has also proposed that fly-tippers could face up to five years in prison, although this would require a change in the law.
Image: Environment Secretary Steve Reed attacked the Conservatives’ record. Pic: PA
Environment Secretary Steve Reed said: “Councils will get much more aggressive against fly-tippers and that includes using the latest technology, things like the new mobile CCTV cameras and drones to identify, track and then seize the vehicles that are being used for fly-tipping to a yard like this and crush them.
“That’s both as a punishment for those people who are dumping the rubbish but also as a deterrent for those who are thinking about doing it.”
He added: “We’re also looking to change the law so that those rogue operators who take rubbish from someone’s home and then dump it on a nearby road – they were getting away almost scot-free under the previous government – they will now be looking at potentially five-year prison sentences.”
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The minister claimed the fly-tipping was “out of control” under the last government.
Data from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) shows local authorities in England dealt with a record 1.15 million incidents last year – a 20% increase from 2018/19.
Environment Agency chief executive Philip Duffy said: “We’re determined to bring these criminals to justice through tough enforcement action and prosecutions.
“That’s why we support the government’s crackdown on waste criminals, which will ensure we have the right powers to shut rogue operators out of the waste industry.”
However, the Conservatives claimed that rubbish is “piling high” in areas like Birmingham as refuse workers strike against a pay and jobs offer from the Labour-run council.
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Shadow environment secretary Victoria Atkins said: “Wherever Labour is in charge, waste is piling high – like in Birmingham, where Labour’s inability to stand up to their union paymasters has left rat-infested rubbish littered across the street.
“And with statistics showing that of the 50 worst local areas for fly-tipping, 72% are Labour controlled, it is clear that voting Labour gets you rubbish and rats.
“So the British public deserve real action, not this series of reheated announcements and policies already introduced by previous governments that Labour is peddling.”
Liberal Democrat deputy leader Daisy Cooper said: “Under the Conservatives’ watch, local communities have been plagued by a fly-tipping epidemic.
“From overflowing bins to piles of hazardous waste, fly-tipping is blighting our landscapes, poisoning livestock on farming land and causing misery for residents.
“Enough is enough.
“The Liberal Democrats are calling for a fly-tipping fighting fund, to push for stronger local enforcement and tougher penalties for offenders.”
US Senate Majority Leader John Thune reportedly told Republican lawmakers that the chamber would address a bill on stablecoin regulation before the May 26 Memorial Day holiday.
According to an April 29 Politico report, Thune made the comments in a closed-door meeting with Republican senators, who hold a slim majority in the chamber. The Guiding and Establishing National Innovation for US Stablecoins, or GENIUS Act, was introduced by Senator Bill Hagerty in February and passed the Senate Banking Committee in March.
Thune did not mention any crypto or blockchain-related bills in his public comments on US President Donald Trump’s first 100 days in office. Since his Jan. 20 inauguration, Trump has signed several executive orders with the potential to affect US crypto policy, including one affecting stablecoins. Still, many of the actions do not carry the force of law without an act of Congress.
The proposed GENIUS bill could essentially restrict any entity other than a “permitted payment stablecoin issuer” from issuing a payment stablecoin in the United States. The House of Representatives, also controlled by Republicans, has proposed a companion bill to the legislation: the Stablecoin Transparency and Accountability for a Better Ledger Economy, or STABLE Act.
Trump accused of conflicts of interest over stablecoins, crypto ventures
The president’s executive order, signed on Jan. 23, established a working group to study the potential creation and maintenance of a national crypto stockpile and a regulatory framework for stablecoins. Republican lawmakers followed by introducing the STABLE and GENIUS acts.
Trump also introduced the order before World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm backed by the president’s family, launched its US-dollar pegged USD1 stablecoin. Many Democratic lawmakers said that Trump’s ties to the firm, coupled with his political influence and position, could present an “extraordinary conflict of interest that could create unprecedented risks to our financial system” as Congress considers the two stablecoin bills.