HOUSE OF LORDS

Wiki table of numbers 2021

HELPFUL LINKS: Wiki, BBC Bitesize; BBC doc series (iPlayer); Guardian news articles;

Hereditary peers were eventually culled to 92 under Blair reforms. The ongoing role of these, and reserved
places for religious figures, is widely known - along with a perception of corruption, the place being filled by party donors and Lords taking up the daily stipend for doing nothing in particular.

Like the famous democracy description, of course, the Lords can also be viewed as the least worst option, bringing in experts that elections tend to fail to.

Like the election of The Speaker in the Commons, there is an obscure, little-known process for that 92 to self-elect any replacement for death or retirement. The electorate is exclusively that 92 - almost all of white men of course. This was highlighted by the Guardian when the late Tony Benn's son Stephen won the 92nd seat unopposed. A doubly troubling event given his father, forced to resign his Commons seat on the inherited peerage passing to him on the death of his own father, forced a change in law to enable him to renounce his peerage and win back a Commons seat.