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.