Category: Tony Blair

Huw Macartney, University of Birmingham

On April 29, 2026, the remaining hereditary peers left the House of Lords. These 92 individuals were the last vestiges of an era in which the landed aristocracy dominated the UK’s second chamber. In the recent past, as many as 800 aristocrats filled the red benches. Now though, a new financial elite appears to have taken their place.

Gradually, the dominance of the aristocrats gave way to a more meritocratic order of life peers. In 1999, Tony Blair’s government removed most of the hereditary peers; in 2026, Keir Starmer’s government finished the job. But did removing them really make the House of Lords any less elitist?

These were some of the issues I sought to explore with a team of graduate researchers at the University of Birmingham. We set about gathering what is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest-ever repository of the financial and political activities of the Lords. Over 18 months, we collected details of all the shareholdings, company directorships, landholdings, rental properties, education, attendance and speeches in the second chamber, as well as voting records for all Lords. These are presented in my new book, The Assetocracy.

What we uncovered was staggering. More than 260 peers hold multiple, individual shareholdings – stakes in listed companies – worth more than £100,000 apiece. In fact, some Lords held more than 200 individual holdings, each valued in excess of £100,000. Even assuming each asset was only worth £100,000, that would put the combined value of those shareholdings alone at more than £22 million.

Put simply, this reflects a level of wealth far beyond that of all but the richest people in Britain. In fact, 14 Lords appear in The Sunday Times Rich List of the UK’s wealthiest people, with a combined net worth of £27.8 billion.

Moreover, half of the House are landlords with rental income. And 250 peers hold one or more paid company directorship. In short, this is an extraordinary concentration of wealth at the heart of Britain’s second chamber.

The social profile of the Lords is equally revealing. Nearly half of peers were privately educated, compared with just 7% of the wider population. Around one third went to Oxford or Cambridge, compared with just 1% nationally. And 11% attended some of Britain’s most elite schools, where annual fees can now top £60,000.

Our conclusion? The Lords is not merely wealthy, it is an institution steeped in economic, educational and social privilege. Yet remarkably little is known about the extent of this wealth. Disclosure requirements remain limited, leaving many of the peers’ financial interests hidden from public view.

And that matters. Membership of the Lords can sit alongside extremely lucrative private-sector careers. Several peers, for example, declared earning between £100,000 and £300,000 a year from company directorships and advisory positions – on top of their parliamentary roles and Lords allowances (a £371 daily rate).

Aristocrats have gone – but privilege has not

This is the paradox at the heart of the modern House of Lords. The old aristocracy may be disappearing from the red benches, but wealth and privilege have not disappeared with it. The aristocracy has increasingly given way to what we termed an “assetocracy” – members of the new financial elite whose power rests on property, finance and accumulated asset-based wealth.

Reforming the second chamber has previously been tied to either removing the aristocratic hereditary peers or (ostensibly) increasing the scope for non-elite appointments. This is primarily done through the House of Lords Appointments Commission and the introduction of crossbenchers, whose appointment does not depend on prime ministerial patronage or political donations.

Yet while these efforts appeared to be producing a diverse collection of Lords through the early 2000s, the trend was reversed with the arrival of the Conservative governments of the 2010s. Since then, my research shows that the second chamber has seen a striking influx of the new “assetocratic” elite.

Appointments of peers with shareholdings over £100,000 (by political party)

My research also reveals a small but clear relationship between wealth and participation in the Lords. Previous accounts have shown that some political donors appear to treat a peerage as a status symbol, playing little part in the day-to-day work of the House. My findings suggest however, that the pattern extends beyond political donors. On average, the wealthiest peers tend to attend less, speak less and contribute less to the work of the House.

One of the book’s central conclusions is that the rise of the assetocrats in the Lords coincided with a wider transformation of British society. It was a period when wealth inequality grew and asset ownership became an increasingly important source of economic advantage.

The Lords did not create these changes, nor are its members the only or primary beneficiaries. But my research shows how peers have often sought to narrow the terms of political debate around wealth and redistribution. They have defended a system that privileges asset ownership and particular forms of wealth accumulation.

For example, Lord Leigh of Hurley, a Conservative peer and businessman, told the House in 2025 that “we need to teach kids that so-called ‘earned income’ is paid, weekly or monthly, without any risk whatever, while ‘unearned income’ is typically generated from an investment, which involves risk to capital and, therefore, deserves greater reward”.

The research points to three conclusions. The first may seem paradoxical, but the more I researched the Lords, the more convinced I became that – certainly on issues beyond wealth and inequality – it is a remarkable source of expertise that often improves and strengthens legislation. That is why abolishing the Lords would throw away an institution that still performs an important democratic function.

Second, reform is nonetheless overdue. Prime ministerial patronage should be curtailed; minimum expectations for attendance and participation introduced; transparency over financial affairs should be increased; and outside employment more tightly regulated where it creates conflicts of interest.

But there is a bigger issue. The transformation of the Lords reflects a much more profound transformation of society. Over the past five decades, the UK has become an economy in which owning property, shares and other assets is an increasingly important route to extraordinary wealth. Removing the last vestiges of the old aristocracy from the Lords will not solve the problem. The deeper challenge is confronting the structural forces that have allowed a new asset-owning elite to take its place.

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Huw Macartney, Associate professor in Political Economy, University of Birmingham

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