How many members are there of the UK House of Lords?
Parliament
In the United Kingdom, Parliament consists of the House of Commons, the House of Lords, and the Monarch. The House of Commons is composed of 650 (soon to be 600) members who are directly elected by British citizens to represent single-member constituencies. The leader of a Party that wins more than half the seats, or less than half but is able to gain the support of smaller parties to achieve a majority in the house is invited by the Monarch to form a government. The House of Lords is a body of long-serving, unelected members: Lords Temporal – 92 of whom inherit their titles (and of whom 90 are elected internally by members of the House to lifetime seats), 588 of whom have been appointed to lifetime seats, and Lords Spiritual – 26 bishops, who are part of the house while they remain in office.
Reform of the House of Lords
On 24 March 2005, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 received Royal Assent. It provides for replacement of the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords with a Supreme Court. It came into force on 1 October 2009, when the new court started work. Most of the Law Lords became its first justices, but retained their peerages. A peerage is no longer required to sit in the UK's court of last resort.
Constitution of the United Kingdom
The Coalition Government formed in May 2010 proposed a series of further constitutional reforms in their coalition agreement. Consequently, the Parliamentary Voting System and Constituencies Act 2011 and the Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 were passed. The Acts were intended to reduce the number of MPs in the House of Commons from 650 to 600, change the way the UK is divided into parliamentary constituencies, introduce a referendum on changing the system used to elect MPs and take the power to dissolve Parliament away from the monarch. The Coalition also promised to introduce law on the reform of the House of Lords. In the referendum, the Alternative Vote system was rejected by 67% to 33%, and therefore all reforms regarding the voting system were dropped. Conservatives forced the government to drop House of Lords reforms, and the Liberal Democrats said they would refuse to support changes to the boundaries of constituencies, as they believed such changes favoured the Conservatives.
House of Lords
The largest group of Lords Temporal, and indeed of the whole House, are life peers. Life peerages rank only as barons or baronesses, and are created under the Life Peerages Act 1958. Like all other peers, life peers are created by the Sovereign, who acts on the advice of the Prime Minister or the House of Lords Appointments Commission. By convention, however, the Prime Minister allows leaders of other parties to nominate some life peers, so as to maintain a political balance in the House of Lords. Moreover, some non-party life peers (the number being determined by the Prime Minister) are nominated by the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Northern Ireland
Elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly are by single transferable vote with five Members of the Legislative Assembly (MLAs) elected from each of 18 parliamentary constituencies. In addition, eighteen representatives (Members of Parliament, MPs) are elected to the lower house of the UK parliament from the same constituencies using the first-past-the-post system. However, not all of those elected take their seats. Sinn Féin MPs, currently seven, refuse to take the oath to serve the Queen that is required before MPs are allowed to take their seats. In addition, the upper house of the UK parliament, the House of Lords, currently has some 25 appointed members from Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland itself forms a single constituency for elections to the European Parliament.
Liberal Democrats (UK)
In May 2011, Clegg revealed plans to make the House of Lords a mainly elected chamber, limiting the number of peers to 300, 80% of whom would be elected with a third of that 80% being elected every 5 years by single transferable vote. In August 2012, Clegg announced that attempts to reform the House of Lords would be abandoned due to opposition for the proposals by backbench Conservative MPs. Claiming the coalition agreement had been broken, Clegg stated that Liberal Democrat MPs would no longer support changes to the House of Commons boundaries for the 2015 general election.
House of Lords
Exceptions include Lord Carrington, who was the Foreign Secretary between 1979 and 1982, Lord Young of Graffham (Minister without Portfolio, then Secretary of State for Employment and then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry from 1984 to 1989), Baroness Amos, who served as Secretary of State for International Development and Lord Mandelson, who served as First Secretary of State, Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade. Lord Robertson of Port Ellen was briefly a peer whilst serving as Secretary of State for Defence before resigning to take up the post of Secretary General of NATO. From 1999 to 2010 the Attorney General for England and Wales was a Member of the House of Lords; the most recent was Patricia Scotland.
Constitution of the United Kingdom
Changes also include the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 which alters the structure of the House of Lords to separate its judicial and legislative functions. For example, the legislative, judicial and executive functions of the Lord Chancellor are now shared between the Lord Chancellor (executive), Lord Chief Justice (judicial) and the newly created post of Lord Speaker (legislative). The role of Law Lord (a member of the judiciary in the House of Lords) was abolished by transferring them to the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in October 2009.
British nobility
Until constitutional reforms in 1999, possession of a title in the peerage (except Irish) entitled its holder to a seat in the House of Lords. Since then, only 92 hereditary peers are entitled to sit in the House of Lords, of which 90 are elected by the hereditary peers by ballot and replaced on death. The two exceptions are the Earl Marshal (a position held by the Dukes of Norfolk), who is responsible for certain ceremonial functions on state occasions, and the Lord Great Chamberlain (a position held in gross and one of a number of persons can hold it), who serves as the monarch's representative in Parliament and accompanies them on certain state occasions; both are automatically entitled to sit in the House. Typically, those due to inherit a peerage—or indeed have done so, in recent times—have been educated at one of the major public schools, such as Eton or Winchester.
Women in the House of Lords
The first women in the House of Lords took their seats in 1958, forty years after women were granted the right to stand as MPs in the House of Commons. There are 209 female peers out of 798 in the House of Lords today, up from 199 out of 826 (24%) in 2015, 176 out of 771 (23%) in 2013, and 164 out of 777 (21%) in 2010. Women make up 25% of the total members, compared with 32% for women in the House of Commons.
House of Lords
The Queen's Speech is delivered in the House of Lords during the State Opening of Parliament. In addition to its role as the upper house, until the establishment of the Supreme Court in 2009, the House of Lords, through the Law Lords, acted as the final court of appeal in the United Kingdom judicial system. The House also has a Church of England role, in that Church Measures must be tabled within the House by the Lords Spiritual.
House of Lords
Women were excluded from the House of Lords until the Life Peerages Act 1958, passed to address the declining number of active members, made possible the creation of peerages for life. Women were immediately eligible and four were among the first life peers appointed. However, hereditary peeresses continued to be excluded until the passage of the Peerage Act 1963. Since the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999, hereditary peeresses remain eligible for election to the Upper House; there is one (Margaret of Mar, 31st Countess of Mar) among the 90 hereditary peers who continue to sit.
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
Part 3 of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, which came into force on 1 October 2009, abolished the judicial functions of the House of Lords (except on impeachment), and transferred them to a new body, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Ten of the initial Justices of the Supreme Court were ten of the twelve then existing Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (Law Lords). One of the Law Lords (Lord Scott of Foscote) had retired on 30 September 2009 and the 12th, Lord Neuberger of Abbotsbury, became the Master of the Rolls (the senior judge who heads civil justice in England and Wales). The 11th place on the Supreme Court was filled by Lord Clarke (previously the Master of the Rolls), a member of the House of Lords who was the first Justice to be appointed directly to the Supreme Court. The 12th place was initially vacant. Although the Justices will still be formally addressed in the Supreme Court as "My Lord" or "My Lady", future appointees will not be elevated to the House of Lords.
Independence from Europe
The party advocated sweeping reforms of the UK's legislative process. These included a reduction of the number of Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Commons by one third (650 to 430) and the replacement of the House of Lords with an elected upper chamber. Scheduled debates would have been introduced, upon which members for Northern Irish, Scottish and Welsh constituencies would return to their devolved legislatures, leaving the UK Parliament to discuss English affairs exclusively. The party repeatedly advocated the abolition of the National Assembly for Wales, however, at one time adopting the tagline 'Abolish Assembly and leave European Union'; it suggested a referendum be held in Wales over the matter. Devolved legislatures' membership would have no longer consisted of politicians elected specifically to those chambers (i.e. MLAs, MSPs or AMs), but would have instead comprised those UK MPs returning routinely from the national parliament.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is an elected chamber with elections to 650 single member constituencies held at least every five years under the first-past-the-post system. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the Houses of Parliament) in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or, less commonly, the House of Lords and are thereby accountable to the respective branches of the legislature. Most cabinet ministers are from the Commons, whilst junior ministers can be from either House. However, the Leader of the House of Lords must be a peer.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
By convention, ministers are members of the House of Commons or House of Lords. A handful have been appointed who were outside Parliament, but in most cases they then entered Parliament in a by-election or by receiving a peerage (being made a life peer). Exceptions include Peter Mandelson, appointed Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform in October 2008 before his peerage. Since 1902, all prime ministers have been members of the Commons; the sole exception was during the long Summer Recess in 1963, the 14th Earl of Home, disclaimed his peerage (under a new mechanism which remains in force), three days after becoming prime minister, thereby becoming Sir Alec Douglas-Home. The new session of Parliament was delayed to await the outcome of his by-election which happened to be underway from a recent death. As anticipated, he won the pending by-election which was for the highest-majority seat in Scotland among his party, else would have been constitutionally obliged to resign.
Constitution of the United Kingdom
Parliament is bicameral, with two houses — the House of Commons and the House of Lords; the monarch formally forms a third element of Parliament (see Queen-in-Parliament). The House of Commons, which unlike the House of Lords is democratically elected, has supremacy by virtue of the Parliament Act 1911 and Parliament Act 1949. An Act of Parliament of the United Kingdom is primary legislation and Parliament can (and does) alter the British constitution by passing such Acts.
House of Lords
The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster. Officially, the full name of the house is the Right Honourable the Lords Spiritual and Temporal of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Parliament assembled.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The House of Lords is formally styled "The Right Honourable The Lords Spiritual and Temporal in Parliament Assembled", the Lords Spiritual being bishops of the Church of England and the Lords Temporal being Peers of the Realm. The Lords Spiritual and Lords Temporal are considered separate "estates", but they sit, debate and vote together.
Francis Baring, 6th Baron Northbrook
Lord Northbrook took his seat in the House of Lords on the death of his father in 1990. He is now one of the 92 hereditary peers who remain in the House of Lords after the House of Lords Act of 1999. He has since blocked further reform of the Lords, tabling 'wrecking' amendments to a draft bill to abolish by-elections for hereditary peers, proposed by Lord Grocott in 2018. Lord Northbrook sits on the Conservative benches and was an Opposition Whip in the House of Lords from 1999 to 2000. He speaks on treasury, constitutional, and agricultural matters.
House of Lords Act 1999
The coalition government of David Cameron (Conservatives) and Nick Clegg (Liberal Democrats), inaugurated in 2010, had plans to reform the House of Lords by making it mostly elected and slashing its size. Deputy Prime Minister and Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg spearheaded the push to bring in the changes. The government wanted four-fifths of members of a reformed House of Lords to be elected. They would have served 15-year terms of office, after which they could not run for re-election. The number of peers was to be almost halved, from 826 to 450. The chamber would have kept the title of House of Lords, after names like Senate and Reformed House were rejected. Peers were each to represent a specific region of the United Kingdom, as constituted for the election of Members of the European Parliament. One-third of seats would have been filled by elections held every five years. Of the remaining 90 members, 12—rather than the current 26—would have been Church of England bishops. The remainder were to continue to be appointed, and all hereditary peers were to be removed. The government had scheduled passage of its bill for the spring of 2013, and the elections were to have taken place in 2015, but the effort stalled when in July 2012, 91 Conservatives in the Commons rebelled against the government in a vote on how to timetable the House of Lords Reform Bill. In August 2012, the coalition's plans were dropped.
Bicameralism
The best known example is the British House of Lords, which includes a number of hereditary peers. The House of Lords is a vestige of the aristocratic system that once predominated in British politics, while the other house, the House of Commons, is entirely elected. Over the years, some have proposed reforms to the House of Lords, some of which have been at least partly successful. The House of Lords Act 1999 limited the number of hereditary peers (as opposed to life peers, appointed by the Monarch on the advice of the Prime Minister) to 92, down from around 700. Of these 92, one is the Earl Marshal, a hereditary office always held by the Duke of Norfolk, one is the Lord Great Chamberlain, a hereditary office held by turns, currently by the Marquess of Cholmondeley, and the other 90 are elected by all sitting peers. Hereditary peers elected by the House to sit as representative peers sit for life; when a representative peer dies, byelections occur to fill the vacancy. The ability of the House of Lords to block legislation is curtailed by the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949. Peers can introduce bills except Money Bills, and all legislation must be passed by both Houses of Parliament. If not passed within two sessions, the House of Commons can override the Lords delay by invoking the Parliament Act. Certain legislation, however, must be approved by both Houses and can't be forced through by the Commons under the Parliament Act. These include any bill that would extend the time length of a Parliament, private bills, bills sent to the House of Lords less than one month before the end of a session, and bills that originated in the House of Lords.
Leader of the House of Lords
The Leader of the House of Lords is a member of the Cabinet of the United Kingdom who is responsible for arranging government business in the House of Lords. The role is always held in combination with a formal Cabinet position, usually one of the sinecure offices of Lord President of the Council, Lord Privy Seal or Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Unless the Leader is also a departmental minister, being Leader constitutes the bulk of his or her government responsibilities, but it has never been an independent salaried office. The Office of the Leader of the House of Lords is a ministerial department.
Peerages in the United Kingdom
Since the loss of the right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords as a result of the House of Lords Act 1999, majority of the House of Lords is made up of life peers. There is no limit on the number of peerages the sovereign may create under the Life Peerages Act. Normally life peerages are granted to individuals nominated by political parties or by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, and to honour important public figures such as the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister on their retirement.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
The British Parliament of today largely descends, in practice, from the Parliament of England, although the 1706 Treaty of Union, and the Acts of Union that ratified the Treaty, created a new Parliament of Great Britain to replace the Parliament of England and the Parliament of Scotland, with the addition of 45 MPs and sixteen Peers to represent Scotland. Later still the Acts of Union 1800 brought about the abolition of the Parliament of Ireland and enlarged the Commons at Westminster with 100 Irish members, creating the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
Women in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Between 1918 and 2015, a total of 450 women have been elected as Members of the House of Commons, which is fewer than the number of men (459) in the 2015 Parliament. The longest-serving female member of Parliament is currently informally known as the Mother of the House.
Parliamentary Committees of the United Kingdom
The Parliamentary Committees of the United Kingdom are sub-legislative organizations each consisting of small number of Members of Parliament from the House of Commons, or peers from the House of Lords, or a mix of both appointed to deal with particular areas or issues; most are made up of members of the Commons. The majority of parliamentary committees are Select Committees. The remit of these committees vary depending on whether they are committees of the House of Commons or the House of Lords.
Politics of the United Kingdom
The House of Lords was previously a largely hereditary aristocratic chamber, although including life peers, and Lords Spiritual. It is currently midway through extensive reforms, the most recent of these being enacted in the House of Lords Act 1999. The house consists of two very different types of member, the Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual. Lords Temporal include appointed members (life peers with no hereditary right for their descendants to sit in the house) and ninety-two remaining hereditary peers, elected from among, and by, the holders of titles which previously gave a seat in the House of Lords. The Lords Spiritual represent the established Church of England and number twenty-six: the Five Ancient Sees (Canterbury, York, London, Winchester and Durham), and the 21 next-most senior bishops.
Democratic Unionist Party
Members of the House of Lords
House of Lords
Holders of Scottish and Irish peerages were not always permitted to sit in the Lords. When Scotland united with England to form Great Britain in 1707, it was provided that the Scottish hereditary peers would only be able to elect 16 representative peers to sit in the House of Lords; the term of a representative was to extend until the next general election. A similar provision was enacted when Ireland merged with Great Britain in 1801 to form the United Kingdom; the Irish peers were allowed to elect 28 representatives, who were to retain office for life. Elections for Irish representatives ended in 1922, when most of Ireland became an independent state; elections for Scottish representatives ended with the passage of the Peerage Act 1963, under which all Scottish peers obtained seats in the Upper House.
Government of the United Kingdom
Parliament is split into two houses: the House of Lords and the House of Commons. The House of Commons is the lower house and is the more powerful. The House of Lords is the upper house and although it can vote to amend proposed laws, the House of Commons can usually vote to overrule its amendments. Although the House of Lords can introduce bills, most important laws are introduced in the House of Commons – and most of those are introduced by the government, which schedules the vast majority of parliamentary time in the Commons. Parliamentary time is essential for bills to be passed into law, because they must pass through a number of readings before becoming law. Prior to introducing a bill, the government may run a public consultation to solicit feedback from the public and businesses, and often may have already introduced and discussed the policy in the Queen's Speech, or in an election manifesto or party platform.
House of Lords Library
David Jones took over as Librarian in 1991, and during his time in charge the number of staff in the Library continued to grow, with the recruitment of more research clerks, librarians and secretarial staff. In 1976, the Library had just ten members of staff, whereas by 2009 there were well over thirty. The Lords itself underwent a historic change in these years, with the removal of the majority of the hereditary peers from membership of the House in 1999. In the years since, the Library has served a membership that now largely consists of working life peers, and its services have been very well-used. When David Jones retired in 2006, the Library underwent its own change by becoming part of a wider Department of Information Services, headed by the then new Librarian, Elizabeth Hallam Smith, and also consisting of the Parliamentary Archives and the House of Lords Information Office. The Library retains its own identity, however, and in recent years it has embraced the possibilities of the digital age, acquiring its own intranet site and subscribing to a large number of e-journals and other web resources, while continuing in its traditional role of providing a repository for Parliamentary papers. The Library's law collection also remains very large, though the long-standing connection with the Law Lords was finally severed in the autumn of 2009 when the Law Lords moved to the new Supreme Court, taking their own library with them. The Lords Library, however, still maintains its main law collection in the Brougham Room as a resource for all members. The collection today is also very strong on works of history, politics and biography, and many of the Library's more historic works are still on display in the Derby Room (named after the 15th Earl of Derby, twice Foreign Secretary in the nineteenth century) and elsewhere.
House of Lords
Several different qualifications apply for membership of the House of Lords. No person may sit in the House of Lords if under the age of 21. Furthermore, only United Kingdom, Irish and Commonwealth citizens may sit in the House of Lords. The nationality restrictions were previously more stringent: under the Act of Settlement 1701, and prior to the British Nationality Act 1948, only natural-born subjects qualified.
List of Labour Party (UK) MPs
This is a list of United Kingdom Labour Party MPs. It includes all Members of Parliament (MPs) elected to the British House of Commons representing the Labour Party from 1900 to 1923 and since 1992. Members of the Scottish Parliament, the Welsh Assembly or the European Parliament are not listed. Those in italics are overall leaders of the Labour Party, those in bold are Prime Ministers.
Non-affiliated members of the House of Lords
The UK Parliament website lists the following "Non-affiliated" members of the House of Lords, excluding those on leave of absence or suspended:
There are other members listed with an "Independent" designation within the House of Lords:
House of Lords
The current Lords Spiritual represent only the Church of England. Bishops of the Church of Scotland historically sat in the Parliament of Scotland but were finally excluded in 1689 (after a number of previous exclusions) when the Church of Scotland became permanently Presbyterian. There are no longer bishops in the Church of Scotland in the traditional sense of the word, and that Church has never sent members to sit in the Westminster House of Lords. The Church of Ireland did obtain representation in the House of Lords after the union of Ireland and Great Britain in 1801.
List of elected hereditary peers under the House of Lords Act 1999
Before the passing of the Act, the House approved a Standing Order stating that the remaining hereditary peers shall consist of:The total number and sub-composition set out above reflects a compromise to ensure passage of the Act through the House reached between then-Prime Minister Tony Blair and the most senior Conservative in the Lords, Viscount Cranborne (known since his father's death in 2003 as the Marquess of Salisbury), a descendent of the last Prime Minister to sit in the Lords. The number elected by each group reflected the relative strengths of the parties among hereditary peers at that time. Historically, the Conservatives had predominated in the House since 1890; it was this entrenched position which led to the removal of the absolute power of veto from the House of Lords by the Parliament Act 1911 and was the chief catalyst for the removal of most hereditary peers in 1999.
House of Lords
Of the 92, two remain in the House of Lords because they hold royal offices connected with Parliament: the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain. Of the remaining ninety peers sitting in the Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage, 15 are elected by the whole House and 75 are chosen by fellow hereditary peers in the House of Lords, grouped by party. (If a hereditary peerage holder is given a life peerage, he or she becomes a member of the House of Lords without a need for a by-election.) The exclusion of other hereditary peers removed Charles, Prince of Wales (who is also Earl of Chester) and all other Royal Peers, including Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh; Prince Andrew, Duke of York; Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex; Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester; and Prince Edward, Duke of Kent.
Law of the United Kingdom
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is bicameral, with an upper house, the House of Lords, and a lower house, the House of Commons. The House of Lords includes two different types of members: the Lords Spiritual (the senior bishops of the Church of England) and the Lords Temporal (members of the Peerage); its members are not elected by the population at large. The House of Commons is a democratically elected chamber. The two Houses meet in separate chambers in the Palace of Westminster (commonly known as the "Houses of Parliament"), in the City of Westminster in London. By constitutional convention, all government ministers, including the Prime Minister, are members of the House of Commons or House of Lords.
Reform of the House of Lords
On 4 May 2000 the Prime Minister announced the membership of a non-statutory Appointments Commission. In the debate in the Commons on 19 June 2000 the Government announced the establishment of a Joint Committee of both houses to consider the Royal Commission's work. But in a written reply on 6 March 2001 the Government stated there was little prospect of a Joint Committee being established in the present Parliament due to a failure of cross-party discussions. On 26 April 2001 the Queen confirmed her intention to create 15 new non-party-political members of the House of Lords termed "People's Peers". In the May 2001 general election, all three main parties included statements on House of Lords reform in their manifestos.
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
An Appellate Committee, normally consisting of five Lords of Appeal in Ordinary or Lords of Appeal, heard the actual appeals. The minimum number of Law Lords that could form a Committee was four. Seven Lords could sit in particularly important cases. On 4 October 2004 a Committee of nine Lords, including both the Senior Law Lord Lord Bingham of Cornhill and Second Senior Law Lord Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead, was convened to hear challenges to the indefinite detention of suspects under the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001, and on 16 December it announced an 8-1 ruling against the Government. Only five Appellate Committees ever comprised nine members. Three of these occurred after 2001.
Members of the House of Lords
In addition to the hereditary peers excluded under the House of Lords Act 1999 and retired Lords Spiritual, there are a number of peers who have permanently ceased to be members of the House.
House of Lords
In August 2015, following the creation of a further 45 peers in the Dissolution Honours, the total number of eligible members of the Lords increased to 826. In a report entitled "Does size matter?" the BBC said: "Increasingly, yes. Critics argue the House of Lords is the second largest legislature after the Chinese National People's Congress and dwarfs Upper Houses in other bi-cameral democracies such as the United States (100 senators), France (348 senators), Australia (76 senators) and India (250 members). The Lords is also larger than the Supreme People's Assembly of North Korea (687 members). [...] Peers grumble that there is not enough room to accommodate all of their colleagues in the Chamber, where there are only about 400 seats, and say they are constantly jostling for space – particularly during high-profile sittings", but added, "On the other hand, defenders of the Lords say that it does a vital job scrutinising legislation, a lot of which has come its way from the Commons in recent years".
Judiciaries of the United Kingdom
The Supreme Court is a relatively new Court being established in October 2009 following the Constitutional Reform Act of 2005. Formerly, the Highest Court of Appeal in the United Kingdom was the House of Lords Appellate Committee made up of Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, also known as Law Lords, which with other Lord Justices now form the Supreme Court. Such Law Lords were allowed to sit in the House of Lords and were members for life.
House of Lords Act 1999
The House of Lords Act 1999 provides firstly that "No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage." (The Act treats the Principality of Wales and the Earldom of Chester as hereditary peerages, though those titles, granted normally to the heir-apparent, are not technically hereditary.) The Act then provides that 92 peers, including the Earl Marshal, the Lord Great Chamberlain and 90 other peers elected in accordance with the Standing Orders of the House, would be excepted from the exclusion of hereditary peers, and that after the first session of the next Parliament, whenever one of these seats fell vacant, the Lords would have to proceed to a by-election. The Act also provided that a hereditary peer would be entitled to vote in elections for, and sit in, the House of Commons, unless he or she was a member of the House of Lords. Previously, hereditary peers had been constitutionally disqualified from being electors to, or members of, the House of Commons. The first hereditary peer to gain a seat in the Commons under this provision was John Thurso.
List of Northern Ireland members of the House of Lords
This is a list of Members of the United Kingdom House of Lords who were born, live or lived in Northern Ireland.
Committee for Privileges and Conduct
The Committee for Privileges and Conduct is a select committee of the House of Lords in the Parliament of the United Kingdom. The committee considers issues relating to the privileges of the House of Lords and its members, as well as having oversight for its members' conduct. The Committee for Privileges and Conduct is made up of sixteen members of the House, two of which must be former holders of high judicial office.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Prior to July 2006, the House of Lords was presided over by a Lord Chancellor (a Cabinet member), whose influence as Speaker was very limited (whilst the powers belonging to the Speaker of the House of Commons are vast). However, as part of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005, the position of Speaker of the House of Lords (as it is termed in the Act) was separated from the office of Lord Chancellor (the office which has control over the judiciary as a whole), though the Lords remain largely self-governing. Decisions on points of order and on the disciplining of unruly members are made by the whole body, but by the Speaker alone in the Lower House. Speeches in the House of Lords are addressed to the House as a whole (using the words "My Lords"), but those in the House of Commons are addressed to the Speaker alone (using "Mr Speaker" or "Madam Speaker"). Speeches may be made to both Houses simultaneously.
House of Lords Act 1999
The House of Lords Act 1999 (c. 34) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999. The Act reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats; the Act removed such a right. However, as part of a compromise, the Act did permit ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House on an interim basis. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.
House of Lords
Most Cabinet ministers are from the House of Commons rather than the House of Lords. In particular, all Prime Ministers since 1902 have been members of the Lower House. (Alec Douglas-Home, who became Prime Minister in 1963 whilst still an Earl, disclaimed his peerage and was elected to the Commons soon after his term began.) In recent history, it has been very rare for major cabinet positions (except Lord Chancellor and Leader of the House of Lords) to have been filled by peers.
House of Lords
The number of Lords Spiritual was further restricted by the Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847, and by later Acts. The Lords Spiritual can now number no more than 26; these are the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Durham, the Bishop of Winchester (who sit by right regardless of seniority) and the 21 longest-serving bishops from other dioceses in the Church of England (excluding the dioceses of Sodor and Man and Gibraltar in Europe, as these lie entirely outside the United Kingdom). Following a change to the law in 2014 to allow women to be ordained bishops, the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 was passed, which provides that whenever a vacancy arises among the Lords Spiritual during the ten years following the Act coming into force, the vacancy has to be filled by a woman, if one is eligible. This does not apply to the five bishops who sit by right.
Julian Grenfell, 3rd Baron Grenfell
Lord Grenfell first entered the House of Lords on his father's death in 1976. He was a member of the UK Delegation to Parliamentary Assemblies of the Council of Europe and Western European Union from 1997 to 1999. He lost his seat in Parliament after the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in that body. However, in 2000 he was created a life peer as Baron Grenfell of Kilvey, of Kilvey in the County of Swansea, which allowed him to return to the House of Lords. He was Principal Deputy Chairman of Committees from 2002 to 2008, a Deputy Speaker from 2002 to 2008, Chairman of the Select Committee on the European Union from 2002 to 2008 and a member of the Procedure Committee from 2003 to 2007. Lord Grenfell took formal voluntary retirement from the House of Lords on 31 March 2014, under a procedure laid down in a Resolution of the House of 27 June 2011. In addition, on 1 October 2014 he became the first peer to retire permanently under the statutory provisions of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014. He retired to Paris.
Aristocracy (class)
In the United Kingdom, members of the highest echelon of the aristocracy, the hereditary peers were, until 1999, members of the House of Lords—the upper house of the legislature, the Parliament of the United Kingdom. In 1999, most ceased to be members. However, the Duke of Norfolk, who always serves as Earl Marshal, the hereditary peer who serves as Lord Great Chamberlain (currently the Marquess of Cholmondeley), and a further 90 Representative Hereditary Peers elected by the Hereditary Peers retained membership. Since 1958, non-hereditary "life peers" have been created, who are automatically members of the House of Lords for life with the right to be known by their title. For example, John Gummer became (The Rt Hon.) Lord Deben.
Politics of the United Kingdom
The Liberal Democrats are a party with policies on constitutional and political reforms, including changing the voting system for general elections (UK Alternative Vote (AV) referendum, 2011), abolishing the House of Lords and replacing it with a 300-member elected Senate, introducing fixed five-year Parliaments, and introducing a National Register of Lobbyists. They also support what they see as greater fairness and social mobility. In the coalition government, the party promoted legislation introducing a pupil premium - funding for schools directed at the poorest students to give them an equal chance in life. They also supported same-sex marriage and increasing the income tax threshold to £10,000, a pre-election manifesto commitment.
Members of the House of Lords
Additionally, the following peers elected to retire from the House of Lords in accordance with the Resolution of the House of 27 June 2011, under which peers were granted the option to signal their intention to voluntarily retire and have their service recognised in the House and marked informally outside the House, and are either still living or have died since February 2018.
Under section 2 of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, peers who fail to attend any sittings of the House during a whole parliamentary session cease to be members of the House at the start of the next session. The following peers have been subject to this provision since the Act came into force and are still living or have died since February 2018:
Under section 41 of the Constitutional Reform and Governance Act 2010, peers are automatically and compulsorily treated as domiciled in the United Kingdom for tax purposes. Section 42 allowed peers who did not wish to comply with the provision to choose within three months of the act coming into force to give notice with the same effect as to resign and retire from the House of Lords. The following peers opted to exercise that right and are still living or have died since February 2018:
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The legislative authority, the Crown-in-Parliament, has three separate elements: the Monarch, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons. No individual may be a member of both Houses, and members of the House of Lords are legally barred from voting in elections for members of the House of Commons. Formerly, no-one could be a member of Parliament while holding an office of profit under the Crown, thus maintaining the separation of powers, but the principle has been gradually eroded. Until 1919, Members of Parliament who were appointed to ministerial office lost their seats in the House of Commons and had to seek re-election; the rule was abolished in 1926. Holders of officers are ineligible to serve as a member of Parliament under the House of Commons Disqualification Act 1975.
Legislatures of the United Kingdom
The House of Commons is the lower house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom and is an elected chamber consisting currently of 650 members known as Members of Parliament (MPs) which are elected using First past the post in single-member constituencies with 533 elected from England, 59 from Scotland, 40 from Wales and 18 from Northern Ireland.
List of elected hereditary peers under the House of Lords Act 1999
As of January 2018 there are 4 dukes, 1 marquess, 26 earls, 17 viscounts and 44 barons among the 92 hereditary peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords.
Peerage of the United Kingdom
Until the House of Lords Act 1999 was passed, all peers of the United Kingdom were automatically members of the House of Lords. However, from that date, most of the hereditary peers ceased to be members as part of Parliamentary reform, whereas the life peers retained their seats. All hereditary peers of the first creation (i.e., those for whom a peerage was originally created, as opposed to those who inherited a peerage from an ancestor), and all surviving hereditary peers who had served as Leader of the House of Lords were offered a life peerage in order to allow them to sit in the House should they wish.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Lords Spiritual formerly included all of the senior clergymen of the Church of England—archbishops, bishops, abbots and mitred priors. Upon the Dissolution of the Monasteries under Henry VIII the abbots and mitred priors lost their positions in Parliament. All diocesan bishops continued to sit in Parliament, but the Bishopric of Manchester Act 1847, and later Acts, provide that only the 26 most senior are Lords Spiritual. These always include the incumbents of the "five great sees", namely the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Durham and the Bishop of Winchester. The remaining 21 Lords Spiritual are the most senior diocesan bishops, ranked in order of consecration, although the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015 makes time-limited provision for vacancies to be filled by women who are bishops.
Lord of Parliament
From 1707 to 1963 the Scottish peers were represented in the House of Lords by representative peers, but from 1963 to 1999 they were all entitled to sit there. However, the House of Lords Act 1999 removed the right of hereditary peers, including Lords of Parliament, to sit in the House of Lords, except that a number of hereditary peers do still sit, following election by hereditary peers. In 1999, two Lords of Parliament were so elected: Lord Reay and the Lady Saltoun. Following the death of Lord Reay on 10 May 2013, only Lady Saltoun remained in parliament. Lady Saltoun resigned from the House of Lords in December 2014.
House of Lords
There are currently sitting members of the House of Lords. An additional Lords are ineligible from participation, including eight peers who are constitutionally disqualified as members of the Judiciary.
MPs first elected in 2010 to the 55th UK Parliament
The fifty-fifth Parliament of the United Kingdom was the legislature of the United Kingdom following the 2010 general election of members of parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. Parliament, which consists of the House of Lords and the elected House of Commons, was convened on 25 May 2010 at the Palace of Westminster by Queen Elizabeth II. It was dissolved on 30 March 2015, being 25 working days ahead of the 2015 general election on 7 May 2015.
Lords Temporal
The Lords Temporal are all members of the Peerage. Formerly, they were all hereditary peers. The right of some hereditary peers to sit in Parliament was not automatic: after Scotland and England united to form the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707, it was provided that all peers whose dignities had been created by English Kings could sit in Parliament, but those whose dignities had been created by Scottish Kings were to elect a limited number of "representative peers". A similar arrangement was made in respect of the Kingdom of Ireland when that nation merged with Great Britain in January 1801 to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. However, when most of Ireland left the United Kingdom as the Irish Free State in December 1922, the election of Irish representative peers ceased. By the Peerage Act 1963, the election of Scottish representative peers also ended, and all Scottish peers were granted the right to sit in Parliament. Under the House of Lords Act 1999, only life peerages automatically entitle their holders to seats in the House of Lords. Of the hereditary peers, only 92 – the Earl Marshal, the Lord Great Chamberlain and 90 elected by other peers – retain their seats in the House.
Women in government
The United Kingdom and United States are roughly in line with the world average. The House of Lords has 139 women (19.7%), while there are 125 women (19.4%) in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom.
Politics of Scotland
Under devolution, Scotland is represented by 59 MPs in the House of Commons of the United Kingdom elected from territory-based Scottish constituencies, out of a total of 650 MPs in the House of Commons. A Secretary of State for Scotland, who prior to devolution headed the system of government in Scotland, sits in the Cabinet of the United Kingdom and is responsible for the limited number of powers the office retains since devolution, as well as relations with other Whitehall Ministers who have power over reserved matters. The Scottish Parliament can refer devolved matters back to Westminster to be considered as part of United Kingdom-wide legislation by passing a Legislative Consent Motion — usually referred to as a Sewel Motion. This has been done on a number of occasions where it has been seen as either more efficient, or more politically expedient to have the legislation considered by Westminster. The Scotland Office is a department of the Government of the United Kingdom, responsible for reserved Scottish affairs. The current Secretary of State for Scotland is David Mundell MP, a Conservative. Until 1999, Scottish peers were entitled to sit in the House of Lords.
Member of parliament
The House of Lords is a legislative chamber that is part of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Although they are part of the parliament, its members are referred to as peers, more formally as "Lords of Parliament", not MPs. Lords Temporal sit for life, Lords Spiritual while they occupy their ecclesiastical positions. Hereditary peers may no longer pass on a seat in the House of Lords to their heir automatically. The 92 who remain have been elected from among their own number, following the House of Lords Act 1999 and are the only elected members of the Lords.
Lords Commissioners
The Lords Commissioners are Privy Counsellors appointed by the Monarch of the United Kingdom to exercise, on his or her behalf, certain functions relating to Parliament which would otherwise require the monarch's attendance at the Palace of Westminster. These include the opening and prorogation of Parliament, the confirmation of a newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons and the granting of Royal Assent. The Lords Commissioners are collectively known as the Royal Commission. The Royal Commission includes at least three—and usually five—Lords Commissioners. In current practice, the Lords Commissioners usually include the Lord Chancellor, the Archbishop of Canterbury (who is named but usually does not participate), the leaders of the three major parties in the House of Lords, the convenor of the House of Lords Crossbenchers and (since 2007) the Lord Speaker of the House of Lords.
House of Lords
In Meg Russell's article "Is the House of Lords already reformed?", she states three essential features of a legitimate House of Lords. The first is that it must have adequate powers over legislation to make the government think twice before making a decision. The House of Lords, she argues, currently has enough power to make it relevant. During Tony Blair's first year, he was defeated 38 times in the Lords. Secondly, as to the composition of the Lords, Meg Russell suggests that the composition must be distinct from the Commons, otherwise it would render the Lords useless. The third feature is the perceived legitimacy of the Lords. She writes, "In general legitimacy comes with election."
Reform of the House of Lords
Certain governments in the United Kingdom have, for more than a century, attempted to find a way to reform the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. This process was started by the Parliament Act 1911 introduced by the then Liberal Government which stated:
...whereas it is intended to substitute for the House of Lords as it at present exists a Second Chamber constituted on a popular instead of hereditary basis, but such substitution cannot be immediately brought into operation
When the Labour Party came to power in the 1997 general election, it had in its manifesto the promise to reform the House of Lords:
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
There are numerous qualifications that apply to Members of Parliament. Most importantly, one must be aged at least 18 (the minimum age was 21 until s.17 of the Electoral Administration Act 2006 came into force), and must be a citizen of the United Kingdom, of a British overseas territory, of the Republic of Ireland, or of a member state of the Commonwealth of Nations. These restrictions were introduced by the British Nationality Act 1981, but were previously far more stringent: under the Act of Settlement 1701, only natural-born subjects were qualified. Members of the House of Lords may not serve in the House of Commons, or even vote in parliamentary elections (just as the Queen does not vote); however, they are permitted to sit in the chamber during debates (unlike the Queen, who cannot enter the chamber).
Members of the House of Lords
This is a list of members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom.
House of Lords Act 1999
The Act decreased the membership of the House from 1,330 in October 1999 to 669 in March 2000. As another result of the Act, the majority of the Lords were now life peers, whose numbers had been gradually increasing since the Life Peerages Act 1958. As of August 2017, there were 802 members of the House of Lords, of whom 26 were senior Church of England bishops, whose representation in the House is governed by the Bishoprics Act 1878.
Peerages in the United Kingdom
From 1707 until 1963 Scottish peers elected 16 representative peers to sit in the House of Lords. Since 1963 they have had the same rights as Peers of the United Kingdom. From 1801 until 1922 Irish peers elected 28 representative peers to sit in the House of Lords. Since 1922, when the Irish Free State became a separate country, no Irish representative peers have been elected, though sitting members retained their seats for life.
Church of England
Of the 42 diocesan archbishops and bishops in the Church of England, 26 are permitted to sit in the House of Lords. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York automatically have seats, as do the Bishops of London, Durham and Winchester. The remaining 21 seats are filled in order of seniority by consecration. It may take a diocesan bishop a number of years to reach the House of Lords, at which point he becomes a Lord Spiritual. The Bishop of Sodor and Man and the Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe are not eligible to sit in the House of Lords as their dioceses lie outside the United Kingdom.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The Commons, the last of the "estates" of the Kingdom, are represented in the House of Commons, which is formally styled "The Honourable The Commons in Parliament Assembled" ("commons" coming not from the term "commoner", but from "", the old French term for a district). In 2016, the House consists of 650 members. Each Member of Parliament (MP) is chosen by a single constituency by the First-Past-the-Post electoral system. Universal adult suffrage exists for those 18 and over; citizens of the United Kingdom, and those of the Republic of Ireland and Commonwealth nations resident in the United Kingdom, are qualified to vote, unless they are in prison at the time of the election. The term of members of the House of Commons depends on the term of Parliament, a maximum of five years; a general election, during which all the seats are contested, occurs after each dissolution (see below).
Religion in the United Kingdom
The Church of England is represented in the UK Parliament by 26 bishops (the Lords Spiritual) and the British monarch is a member of the church (required under Article 2 of the Treaty of Union) as well as its Supreme Governor. The Lords Spiritual have seats in the House of Lords and debate government policies affecting the whole of the United Kingdom. The Church of England also has the right to draft legislative measures (related to religious administration) through the General Synod that can then be passed into law by Parliament. The Prime Minister, regardless of personal beliefs, plays a key role in the appointment of Church of England bishops, although in July 2007 Gordon Brown proposed reforms of the Prime Minister's ability to affect Church of England appointments.
List of ethnic minority politicians in the United Kingdom
Based on data from unofficial sources including Operation Black Vote, the House of Commons Library estimated that there were 44 ethnic minority members of the House of Lords . 15 of these were affiliated with the Labour Party, 13 were crossbenchers, five each were Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and non-affiliated, and one was a bishop.
House of Lords Appointments Commission
The House of Lords Appointments Commission is an independent advisory Non-departmental public body in the United Kingdom. It has two roles:The Commission does not vet for propriety the appointments of the Bishops or Archbishops or the 92 hereditary peers who still sit in the House of Lords.
Reform of the House of Lords
Lord Steel's proposal would have an upper house, "The Senate", comprising 450 members, to be known as "senators". Immediately after the 5-yearly general elections, 150 senators would be elected for 15 years. Voting would not be by universal suffrage: this electorate would be the newly elected MPs, MEPs, and Members of the three devolved legislatures: the National Assembly for Wales, Scottish Parliament and Parliament of Northern Ireland.
House of Lords
Members of the House of Lords who sit by virtue of their ecclesiastical offices are known as Lords Spiritual. Formerly, the Lords Spiritual were the majority in the English House of Lords, comprising the church's archbishops, (diocesan) bishops, abbots, and those priors who were entitled to wear a mitre. After the English Reformation's highpoint in 1539, only the archbishops and bishops continued to attend, as the Dissolution of the Monasteries had just disproved of and suppressed the positions of abbot and prior. In 1642, during the few Lords' gatherings convened during English Interregnum which saw periodic war, the Lords Spiritual were excluded altogether, but they returned under the Clergy Act 1661.
Politics of England
English members of parliament are elected at the same time as those for the rest of the UK. There are 533 English constituencies. Because of their large number, they form an inbuilt majority in the House of Commons. Even though Clause 81 of the Scotland Act 1998 equalised the English and Scottish electoral quota, and thereby reduced the number of Scottish members in the House of Commons from 72 to 59 MPs.
House of Lords Precedence Act 1539
The House of Lords Precedence Act 1539 (31 Hen 8 c 10) is an Act of the Parliament of England. It prescribed the order of precedence of members of the House of Lords. However some of it has since been superseded or repealed, and so for the full order of precedence today other sources should also be consulted.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
The House of Lords Act 1999 removed the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords, although it made an exception for 92 of them to be elected to life-terms by the other hereditary peers, with by-elections upon their death. The House of Lords is now a chamber that is subordinate to the House of Commons. Additionally, the Constitutional Reform Act 2005 led to abolition of the judicial functions of the House of Lords with the creation of the new Supreme Court of the United Kingdom in October 2009.
House of Lords
The size of the House of Lords has varied greatly throughout its history. From about 220 members in the early 1700s, it increased to a record size of 1,330 in October 1999, before Lords reform reduced it to 669 by March 2000.
House of Lords
Since the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the Lords Temporal have been the most numerous group in the House of Lords. Unlike the Lords Spiritual, they may be publicly partisan, aligning themselves with one or another of the political parties that dominate the House of Commons. Publicly non-partisan Lords are called crossbenchers. Originally, the Lords Temporal included several hundred hereditary peers (that is, those whose peerages may be inherited), who ranked variously as dukes, marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons (as well as Scottish Lords of Parliament). Such hereditary dignities can be created by the Crown; in modern times this is done on the advice of the Prime Minister of the day (except in the case of members of the Royal Family).
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Since the Parliament Acts 1911 and 1949, the powers of the House of Lords have been very much less than those of the House of Commons. All bills except money bills are debated and voted upon in the House of Lords; however, by voting against a bill, the House of Lords can only delay it for a maximum of two parliamentary sessions over a year. After that time, the House of Commons can force the Bill through without the Lords' consent, under the Parliament Acts. The House of Lords can also hold the government to account through questions to government ministers and the operation of a small number of select committees. The highest court in England & Wales and in Northern Ireland used to be a committee of the House of Lords, but it became an independent supreme court in 2009.
House of Lords
In August 2014, despite there being a seating capacity of only around 230 to 400 on the benches in the Lords chamber, the House had 774 active members (plus 54 who were not entitled to attend or vote, having been suspended or granted leave of absence). This made the House of Lords the largest parliamentary chamber in any democracy. In August 2014, former Speaker of the House of Commons Betty Boothroyd requested that "older peers should retire gracefully" to ease the overcrowding in the House of Lords. She also criticised successive prime ministers for filling the second chamber with "lobby fodder" in an attempt to help their policies become law. She made her remarks days before a new batch of peers were due to be created.
List of landmark United Kingdom House of Lords cases
This page lists legal decisions of the House of Lords. Until 30 September 2009, the House of Lords was the highest appellate court for the United Kingdom. Cases were determined not by the House of Lords itself, but by its Judicial Committee, consisting of up to nine legally qualified peers, generally referred to as "Law Lords". On 1 October 2009 its functions were transferred to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
London
London is the seat of the Government of the United Kingdom. Many government departments, as well as the Prime Minister's residence at 10 Downing Street, are based close to the Palace of Westminster, particularly along Whitehall. The British Parliament is often referred to as the "Mother of Parliaments" (although this sobriquet was first applied to England itself, and not to Westminster, by John Bright) because it has been a model for many other parliamentary systems. There are 73 Members of Parliament (MPs) from London, elected from local parliamentary constituencies in the national Parliament. , 49 are from the Labour Party, 21 are Conservatives, and three are Liberal Democrat.
Reserved political positions
The UK also reserves 26 seats in the House of Lords for Church of England bishops, who together are known as the Lords Spiritual.
House of Commons
In the UK and Canada, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the respective upper house of parliament. The leader of the majority party in the House of Commons usually becomes the prime minister. Since 2010 the House of Commons of the United Kingdom has had 650 elected members, and since 2015 the House of Commons of Canada has had 338 members. The Commons' functions are to consider through debate new laws and changes to existing ones, authorise taxes, and provide scrutiny of the policy and expenditure of the Government. It has the power to give a Government a vote of no confidence.
Great Offices of State
Owing to the political constitution of the United Kingdom, in which the House of Commons retains most of the power, it is accepted that it is no longer practical for holders of the Great Offices of State to be members of the House of Lords. The House of Lords has traditionally been restrained in the passage of financial bills, meaning that the office of Chancellor is effectively limited to the House of Commons. The last holders of the other positions to have been peers were:It is most exceptional that a holder of a Great Office of State should not hold a seat in Parliament at all, neither in the Commons nor in the Lords. It occurred briefly in 1963, when Alec Douglas-Home was appointed Prime Minister: he disclaimed his peerage on 23 October, and was not returned to the Commons until a by-election on 7 November. More substantially, Patrick Gordon Walker was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1964 despite not holding a Parliamentary seat, having been defeated in his Smethwick constituency seat in the 1964 general election; he held the post for three months until his resignation in January 1965.
UK Independence Party
The UK Independence Party (UKIP ) is a hard Eurosceptic, right-wing political party in the United Kingdom. It currently has one representative in the House of Lords and seven Members of the European Parliament (MEPs). It has four Assembly Members (AMs) in the National Assembly for Wales and one member in the London Assembly. The party reached its greatest level of success in the mid-2010s, when it gained two Members of Parliament and was the largest UK party in the European Parliament.
House of Lords
If there is an equality of votes, the motion is decided according to the following principles: legislation may proceed in its present form, unless there is a majority in favour of amending or rejecting it; any other motions are rejected, unless there is a majority in favour of approving it. The quorum of the House of Lords is just three members for a general or procedural vote, and 30 members for a vote on legislation. If fewer than three or 30 members (as appropriate) are present, the division is invalid.
Parliament of the United Kingdom
Both houses of the British Parliament are presided over by a speaker, the Speaker of the House for the Commons and the Lord Speaker in the House of Lords.
Dee Doocey
Dee Doocey was created a life peer on 21 December 2010, as Baroness Doocey, and sits on the Liberal Democrat benches in the House of Lords. In 2016, the House of Lords appointed her as the inaugural chair of its new Finance Committee. The Committee controls the House of Lords’ internal budgets, commissioning the House’s annual financial plan and monitoring expenditure. As Chair of the Committee, Baroness Doocey is a member of the House of Lords Commission, which provides high-level strategic and political direction for the House Administration. The Commission and the Finance Committee arose from recommendations of the Lords Leader’s Group on Governance, of which Baroness Doocey was a member.
House of Lords
In July 2008, Jack Straw, the Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor, introduced a white paper to the House of Commons proposing to replace the House of Lords with an 80–100% elected chamber, with one third being elected at each general election, for a term of approximately 12–15 years. The white paper states that as the peerage would be totally separated from membership of the upper house, the name "House of Lords" would no longer be appropriate: It goes on to explain that there is cross-party consensus for the new chamber to be titled the "Senate of the United Kingdom"; however, to ensure the debate remains on the role of the upper house rather than its title, the white paper is neutral on the title of the new house.
House of Commons of the United Kingdom
Like the Lords, the Commons meets in the Palace of Westminster in London. The Commons chamber is small and modestly decorated in green, in contrast to the large, lavishly furnished red Lords chamber. There are benches on two sides of the chamber, divided by a centre aisle. This arrangement reflects the design of St Stephen's Chapel, which served as the home of the House of Commons until destroyed by fire in 1834. The Speaker's chair is at one end of the Chamber; in front of it, is the Table of the House, on which the Mace rests. The Clerks sit at one end of the Table, close to the Speaker so that they may advise him or her on procedure when necessary. Members of the Government sit on the benches on the Speaker's right, whilst members of the Opposition occupy the benches on the Speaker's left. In front of each set of benches a red line is drawn, which members are traditionally not allowed to cross during debates. Government ministers and the leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Cabinet sit on the front rows, and are known as "frontbenchers". Other members of parliament, in contrast, are known as "backbenchers". Not all Members of Parliament can fit into the Chamber at the same time, as it only has space to seat approximately two thirds of the Members. According to Robert Rogers, former Clerk of the House of Commons and Chief Executive, a figure of 427 seats is an average or a finger-in-the-wind estimate. Members who arrive late must stand near the entrance of the House if they wish to listen to debates. Sittings in the Chamber are held each day from Monday to Thursday, and also on some Fridays. During times of national emergency, the House may also sit at weekends.
Members of the House of Lords
Lords Temporal include life peers, excepted hereditary peers elected under the House of Lords Act 1999, and remaining law life peers.
House of Lords
Fifteen hereditary peers are elected by the whole House, and the remaining hereditary peers are the two royal office-holders, the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, both of whom are currently on leave of absence.