10 August 1911

The House of Lords pass the Parliament Bill

The debate had begun the previous day on one of the hottest days ever recorded. Moved by Lord Morley the Parliament Bill would prevent the Lords from altering money bills, allow them to delay rather than reject other bills, while limiting the life of Parliament to 5 years. The debate was to a large extent an argument between the two factions in the Unionist Party – the ‘Hedgers’ and the ‘Ditchers’. Alarmed at the promise by King George V to create over 200 new peers to enable the Bill to pass should the Lords reject it, the Unionist ‘Hedgers’ led by Lords Lansdowne and Curzon argued that further opposition to the Bill would lead to an end of the House of Lords. The debate raged for two days until 10.45pm on 10th August. In the end 37 Unionists and 13 Bishops voted with 81 Liberals to see the Bill passed by 17 votes. One casualty of the passage of the bill was Unionist leader Arthur Balfour who was subjected to a campaign calling for his resignation, which he did in November to be replaced by the more partisan Andrew Bonar Law.