The composition of the House of Lords

Question 1

Although referred to as the upper chamber, why is its authority considerably less than that of the Commons

Answer 1

This is because it is an appointed chamber and cannot claim the democratic legitimacy that the Commons can

Question 2

Throughout history, what has the Lords primary been composed of?

Answer 2

Throughout history, Lords was primarily composed of peers

Question 3

What were the original peers claim to membership based on ?

Answer 3

Claim to membership was based on their possession of a hereditary noble title, as well as a much smaller number of bishops representing the church of England

Question 4

What are the groups of hereditary peers and bishops collectively called ?

Answer 4

Lord Temporal- hereditary peers

Lord Spiritual- Bishops from the Church of England

Question 5

Why did the influence of the Lords decline during the 19th and 20th century

Answer 5

The expansion of the franchise during the 19th and 20th century meant that the influence of the Lords declined as the authority of the Commons increased

Question 6

Why did the Parliament Act of 1911 further diminish the power of the Lords ?

Answer 6

Parliament Act of 1911 further diminished power of the Lords by removing its right to veto legislation passed by the HOC

Question 7

What act was passed in 1958 which changed the structure to the House of Lords ?

Answer 7

In 1958, the Life Peerages Act was passed, which gave the PM the authority to nominate life peers to the HOL
Life peers do not pass on their title, and their appointment to the Lords is based on public service they have provided to the nation

Question 8

What did Blair do during his reign and when which further change the composition of the Lords ?

Answer 8

In 1999, Blair took reform of HOL further by removing the right of the 750 hereditary peers to continue sitting in the Lords (however to avoid confrontation, he kept the historical principle whereby 92 hereditary peers could be elected to the Lords by hereditary peerage)

As a result, HOL is now a mixture of Life peers, hereditary peers and bishops of the Church of England

Question 9

What are the Life Peers

Answer 9

A peer whose title cannot be inherited (the title disappears with the person)- by far the most numerous

Question 10

How are life peers elected

Answer 10

Nominated to the Crown by the prime minister on the advice of Downings Street Main Honours Committee and the opposition party

Question 11

Why are life peers able to act more independently than MP’s

Answer 11

Because they are not elected, also means they are able to act more independently since they are not bound by their party’s manifesto - much less influenced by party politics than the HOC

Question 12

What are hereditary peers and how many of them are there

Answer 12

92

Claim to membership is based on their possession of a hereditary noble title

Question 13

What are Lords spirituals and how many of them are ?

Answer 13

26

Their right to sit and vote in the House having been established by ancient usage- being a Bishop in the Church of England

Question 14

What are cross benchers ?

Answer 14

People who have no political link or don’t vote with a political party

Question 15

What are the advantages of cross benchers

Answer 15

They are less influenced by the dictates of the whips so can address the merits and demerits of legislation with a more open mind

Makes it more difficult for the government to dictate the house of lords

Whipping the lords is harder due to the many number of crossbenchers

Question 16

How can the governing parties position use their power and the convention of the House of Lords to their advantage

Answer 16

A government that has been in office for a long period of time has the opportunity to appoint a considerable number of life peers to the House of Lords.

There is also a convention that the government should make nominations to the Lords roughly based on the political configuration of the House of Commons.

Question 17

Example of the convention whereby government should make nominations to the Lords roughly based on the political configuration of the House of Commons.

Answer 17

During his ten years as prime minister (1997-2007), Tony Blair recommended 374 appointments to the House of Lords. Since he had such commanding majorities in the House of Commons, the majority of these were Labour or cross-bench appointments

Tony Blair’s appointments to the House of Lords

Number of peers
Labour 162 
Crossbench 96 
Conservative 62 
Liberal Democrat 34

Question 18

Why is the Commons and Lords similar in terms of its layout

Answer 18

As in the House of Commons, the government and the opposition have their own frontbenchers in the Lords

The Lords is presided over by the Lord speaker, who in the same way as the speaker of the House of Commons, manages the chamber and advises on procedure

Question 19

Why does the Lords has much less adversarial (charcterised by conflict or opposition) reputation than the commons ?

Answer 19

HOL primarily focuses its expertise on scrutinising and revising legislation. Its debates, are therefore, considerably more courteous (polite and respectful) than those in the HOC