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.