Lords, House of

A 16th-century manuscript depicting Edward I in Parliament. The king is flanked by Alexander II of Scotland on his right and Llewellyn ap Gruffyd of Wales on his left. In front of him the justices and law officers are sitting on woolsacks.

Upper chamber of the UK Parliament. Following the House of Lords Act 1999, the number of hereditary peers (those with an inherited title) sitting in the upper chamber was reduced from 750 to a maximum of 92. In October 2001 there were 711 members of the House of Lords: 91 hereditary peers, 620 life peers (with title granted for the remainder of their lifetime), 2 archbishops, and 24 bishops. Together the hereditary and life peers form the Lords Temporal, of whom 26 are ‘law lords’; the archbishops and bishops are the Lords Spiritual. In October 2001 the hereditary peers included 50 Conservative, 4 Labour, and 31 independent ‘cross-bench’ members. Of the life peers, 172 were Conservative, 193 Labour, and 145 ‘cross-benchers’. There were 117 women peers.

Members of the House of Lords are not elected in a general election, although the hereditary peers sitting in the Lords are elected by their fellow hereditary peers. Life peers include both the law lords and those created under the Life Peerages Act 1958. The hereditary peerage, from whom members of the upper house are taken, includes hereditary peers of England created to 1707, hereditary peers of Great Britain created 1707-1800, and hereditary peers of the UK from 1801 onwards; hereditary Scottish peers (under the Peerage Act 1963); and peeresses in their own right (under the same act). The Spiritual Peers are the archbishops of Canterbury and York, and 24 of the bishops (London, Durham, and Winchester by right, and the rest by seniority). Since the Parliament Act of 1911 the powers of the Lords have been restricted in that they may delay a bill passed by the Commons but not reject it. The Lords are presided over by the Lord Chancellor.

Membership By the Appellate Jurisdiction Act (1876; as amended) the Crown is enabled to create life peers to serve as lords of appeal in ordinary. By the Life Peerages Act (1958) the Crown may confer life peerages on both men and women. The Peerage Act (1963) enabled hereditary peers to disclaim their peerages for life and a number of peerages have since been disclaimed. The Life Peerages Act enabled those who objected to the hereditary principle or felt unable to accept an hereditary peerage to accept membership of the House of Lords. In particular it enabled many Labour supporters to accept peerages, thus considerably augmenting the numerical strength of the Labour Party in the Upper House. The Act also facilitated the membership of many individuals prominent in various walks of life outside politics.

Thus, although the House of Lords has traditionally been regarded as a bastion of Conservatism, the Conservative Party has not had an absolute majority in the Upper House for some time and the balance of power is held by the ‘cross benchers’, those peers who accept no party whip. It remains true, however, that Labour governments are more likely than Conservative governments to find opposition to their policies in the Upper House, although the Lords have generally given way when faced with an insistent Labour majority in the House of Commons.

Members of the House of Lords do not receive a salary, but have been entitled to daily expenses for attendance since 1957.

Officers The principal officers of the House of Lords are:

(1) The Speaker, the Lord Chancellor. The Speaker of the House of Lords does not have the wide powers of his or her counterpart in the Lower House; questions of order are determined not by them but by the House, and in debate the House and not the Speaker is addressed. An important distinction is that the Lord Chancellor as one of the principal members of the government takes a leading part in the deliberations of the House, where he or she is a government spokesperson.

(2) The chairman of Committees, who holds office during the lifetime of a session. He or she takes the chair when the House goes into committee, and superintends all committees and matters appertaining to private bills. In the absence of the Lord Chancellor he or she acts as Speaker.

(3) The clerk of the Parliaments, appointed by letters patent, who keeps the journals of the House, makes minutes of the proceedings, acts as registrar of the House sitting in its judicial capacity, has charge of all records and documents, and signifies the royal assent to bills that have passed both houses. He or she is assisted by the clerk assistant and the reading clerk.

(4) Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, who is appointed by letters patent and is a member of the royal household. He or she assists at the introduction of peers, summons the attendance of the Commons when necessary, and executes warrants of commitment. The appellation is derived from the black wand, surmounted by a golden lion, which Black Rod carries. He or she also holds the office of Serjeant at Arms and in this capacity carries the mace when the Lord Chancellor enters and leaves the House.

(5) The Yeoman Usher of the Black Rod, who is Black Rod's deputy.

Functions and powers The functions of the House of Lords were summarized by the report of the Bryce Conference 1917-18 and these are still widely accepted. They are: (1) the examination and revision of bills from the House of Commons, especially those which have been subject to limited debate; (2) the initiation of non-controversial bills; (3) the full and free discussion of large and important questions, especially, but not exclusively, those which the lower House cannot find time to debate; and (4) the delaying of legislation in order to allow public opinion to be heard or, as it has sometimes been put, to allow governments to have ‘second thoughts’.

To these must be added the judicial role of the House of Lords as the final court of appeal. This latter function, however, is carried out by lords of appeal or law lords (the Lord Chancellor and any former Lord Chancellors, the 11 lords of appeal in ordinary, and any former lords of appeal). Appeals in both civil and criminal cases are heard by at least three lords of appeal, but whereas the law lords may participate in a personal capacity in any debate in the upper House, other members of the Lords may not take part in its judicial function.

In general the House of Lords considerably assists the House of Commons by revising bills, reviewing existing statutes through the Law Commission, and consolidating existing legislation, and by assuming the greater part of the work involved in private bills. On average, governments are defeated around 13 times each session in the Lords; although the New Labour government of Tony Blair was defeated 21 times during its first year of power 1997-1998.

History The House of Lords was originally the more important of the two Houses of Parliament and, even after it had lost its constitutional primacy, the upper House retained considerable influence over the House of Commons through the control of elections. In the latter half of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th there were increasing clashes between Lords and Commons, culminating in the rejection by the upper House of Lloyd George's People's Budget in 1909. This resulted in a fierce constitutional struggle, involving two general elections in 1910, and resulting in the passing of the Parliament Act 1911. The preamble of the latter stated that it was the government's intention to reform the composition of the House of Lords, but this was never done.

The Act of 1911 did drastically curb the powers of the upper House, however, by laying down that any bill rejected or amended by the Lords, but which was passed by the Commons in three successive sessions over not less than two calendar years, should receive the royal assent, and by limiting the Lords' power to delay money bills to one month. As a partial safeguard against the arbitrary use by the Commons of its increased power, the maximum period between general elections was reduced from seven to five years, and any bill to extend the life of a Parliament beyond its legal limit must be approved by the House of Lords.

In 1947, following fears that the House of Lords would obstruct its programme as the Parliament elected in 1945 drew to its close, the Labour government introduced a Parliament Bill, which was passed under the provisions of the Parliament Act 1911 and became the Parliament Act 1949. This effectively reduced the Lords' veto from two years to nine months.

Reform of the House of Lords An abortive attempt to reform both the powers and the composition of the House of Lords had been made by an all-party conference in 1948 and further efforts to secure agreement in the 1950s were unsuccessful. Partial reform of the composition of the upper House was achieved by the Life Peerage Act 1958 and the Peerage Act 1963, but a further attempt at more comprehensive reform 1968-69, based on an informal agreement between the Conservative and Labour leaderships, was thwarted by determined opposition from backbenchers of both parties.

When the New Labour government was elected in May 1997 it proposed to democratize the House of Lords, firstly by ending the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the chamber. In 1998 the government, led by Tony Blair, introduced legislation to abolish the right of peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords. At the time there were 1,134 members, including 631 hereditary peers and only 477 life peers. When the House of Lords Act was finally passed in 1999, a compromise allowed 92 hereditary peers (elected by their fellow peers) to remain as temporary members. Hereditary peers now also have the right to vote and stand as candidates for the House of Commons.

In January 1999 a Royal Commission was set up to look into future reform of the House of Lords. Its report, A House for the Future (January 2000), recommended the establishment of a mostly-nominated and partly-elected upper chamber of around 550 members. However, the government has set no timetable for the implementation of further reform.