SCOTTISH Labour are “working on the assumption” that the House of Lords will be replaced in the first term of a Labour UK government, a spokesperson has said, despite the UK party saying they won't.
It comes after Anas Sarwar also said in his speech on the first day of Scottish Labour’s conference that Labour “must replace the House of Lords”.
This seems in stark contradiction to the UK Labour line, with multiple reports saying the opposite in recent months.
The Observer reported in October last year that Starmer would U-turn on plans to abolish the House of Lords within the first term of a new Labour administration.
READ MORE: Scottish Labour boss hits out at 'branch office' claims
The Financial Times also reported two weeks ago that Labour is delaying plans to abolish the House of Lords in a first five-years of the next parliament.
Labour aides told the FT that Starmer was still in favour of scrapping the upper house and replacing it eventually.
The plans, unveiled in December 2022 after work by former prime minister Gordon Brown, would replace the Lords with a democratic assembly of nations and regions.
But The Observer reported that the party is moving away from plans to make it a priority and will instead look at alternatives, including caps on the number of peers and empowering the appointments body to prevent “inappropriate” people being granted peerages.
But a Scottish Labour spokesperson told journalists at the party’s conference, when prompted: “We are working on the assumption that the House of Lords will be replaced in the first term.”
During his speech at Glasgow's SEC Centre, Sarwar said that “every layer of our democracy is broken”.
He added: “Ask people in the Western Isles, in Inverness, or in Orkney if they think devolution has moved power closer to them?
“For them, and so many other places, Holyrood can feel as distant as Westminster.
“Every layer of our democracy is broken.
“That’s why we must replace the House of Lords with a democratic institution that represents the nations and regions of the UK.
“We must clean up Westminster and push power out to the nations and regions.”
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