PARLIAMENT has voted to evict the last of Britain’s hereditary peers from the House of Lords after more than seven centuries in occupation — but the bishops cling on.

Labour’s House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill overwhelmingly passed its third reading by 435 votes to 73 on Tuesday, consigning the principle — and the 92 places reserved for hereditary peers in the party’s 1999 effort at reform — to history.

The move forms the first stage in Labour’s proposals to reform the House of Lords.

Cabinet office minister Ellie Reeves assured the Commons that further consultation would take place on Labour’s 2024 manifesto commitment to replace “the House of Lords with an alternative second chamber that is more representative of the regions and nations.”

The SNP’s deputy Westminster leader, Pete Wishart, saw his series of amendments ranging from banning donors taking a seat in the Lords and taxing their £342-a-day allowance to outright abolition, all fall.

He told MPs: “I do not know where the naive assumption or belief on the Labour benches that there will be further Lords reform comes from.

“There will not be any more.

“I was here during the 90s when Labour attempted to bring in Lords reform and gave up immediately, with no intention of ever bringing that back.

“This is it — this is all we are going to get — and unless we make this a good Bill, this is all we will get in this Parliament.”

Speaking to his amendments, he branded the legislation a “pathetic, little, minuscule Bill,” adding: “If you represent the people, you should be voted by the people.

“I’ve managed to secure amendments that will abolish the donors, will abolish the appointees, the cronies that the Prime Minister appoints to fill that place.”

Backing Tory MP Gavin Williamson’s bid to also evict the bishops, Mr Wishart argued they would “stand out like a sore thumb in a cassock” after the demise of hereditary peers had gone.

As the Archbishop of Canterbury — a member of the Lords — was drafting his resignation letter, Mr Wishart continued: “They’re not even prepared to kick out the bloody bishops, for goodness sake.

“How on Earth can we be in a situation in 2024 where we have bishops legislating in a modern, advanced, industrial democracy?

“It is beyond a joke. How about sticking to their ministries?

“It’s not as if they’re without a whole range of issues just now.”