Lords Temporal
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The Lords Temporal are secular members of the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament. These can be either life peers or hereditary peers, although the hereditary right to sit in the House of Lords was abolished for all but ninety-two peers during the 1999 reform of the House of Lords. The term is used to differentiate these members from the Lords Spiritual, who sit in the House as a consequence of being bishops in the Church of England.[1][2]
History
Membership in the Lords Temporal was once an entitlement of all hereditary peers, other than those in the peerage of Ireland. Under the House of Lords Act 1999, the right to membership was restricted to 92 hereditary peers.[3]
Further
Composition of the Lords Temporal
The Lords Temporal consist of a smaller number of
Hereditary peers
The Lords Temporal has historically included several hundred hereditary peers (English peers as well as Scottish
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 Scottish 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.
After the 1999 reform, only 92 hereditary peers remain as Lords Temporal. Two are 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.[7][2]
Life peers
The largest group of Lords Temporal, and indeed of the whole House, are life peers. As of March 2024 there are 670 life peers.[8] 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 Crown, who acts on the advice of the Prime Minister or the House of Lords Appointments Commission. However, by convention, the Prime Minister allows leaders of other parties to nominate some life peers, to maintain political equilibrium.
In 2000, the government announced it would set up an Independent Appointments Commission, under
Defunct groupings
Law lords
Until the establishment of the
Citations
- ISBN 978-1241049874.
- ^ a b Cobbett, William (1803). Cobbett's Parliamentary history of England. From the Norman conquest, in 1066. To the year, 1803. London: T.C. Hansard. p. 135.
- ^ "House of Lords briefing paper on Membership:Types of Member, Routes to membership, Parties & groups" (PDF). Parliament of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 1 July 2011.
- ^ Executive Summary of the Wakeham Report
- ^ "Lords report fails to satisfy". BBC. 20 January 2000. Retrieved 23 March 2013.
- ^ Grice, Andrew (11 July 2012). "Coalition shaken as Cameron ducks out of vote on Lords". The Independent. Online. Retrieved 25 September 2019.
- ^ "Hereditary Peers".
- ^ "Lords membership - MPS and Lords - UK Parliament".
- ^ "HOLAC Appointments". House of Lords Appointments Commission. 30 July 2009. Archived from the original on 3 September 2009. Retrieved 7 September 2009.
- ^ "Archived copy". www.brickcourt.co.uk. Archived from the original on 28 May 2019. Retrieved 13 January 2022.
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: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) - ^ "Parliamentary sovereignty". Parliament of the United Kingdom. Retrieved 29 January 2012.