Andy Burnham says he won’t hold back on early changes to House of Lords -including downsizing it

Labour leadership hopeful Andy Burnham has said that he will not hold back on early changes to the House of Lords, including downsizing the second chamber and replacing it with a ‘Senate of Regions and Nations’.

His comments come ahead of the crucial by-election in Makerfield on 18^th June, which he hopes to win and then launch a leadership challenge.

He made the comments during an interview with the House Magazine, reiterating his support for overhauling the Upper Chamber and saying it should be “the first place to look” for cutting “the cost of politics”.

Burnham said: “I wouldn’t rule out quite an early change, and possibly the 2029 general election or beyond, because I’ve long believed that there’s a first stage of Lords reform, which is indirect election that could be linked to a general election, and I just think we can’t delay this any longer.

“I don’t think we can justify half of our national legislature being unelected. I think this is something that is, in many ways, quite scandalous.

“If you think about this constituency and the feeling here that Westminster looks past it – when you look at the flooding issues it’s got, the illegal tip, poor infrastructure, a whole host of other issues. Is it a surprise to people here that that might be like that when you have a House of Lords that’s largely drawn from within the M25?”

Burnham said Lords Reform would be among the first things he would prioritise, especially when it came to cutting costs in politics.