Qualla: House of Lords

House of Lords: Introduction

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit GuarénDeBiblioteca, CC BY-SA 4.0. On 19 March 1649, three months after the execution of Charles I, the English Commons declared that the House of Lords was useless and dangerous to the people of England, and abolished it. The Lords stayed abolished for eleven years until Cromwell died and the monarchy returned in 1660. Three hundred and seventy-five years later, the body that the Commons declared useless still meets in a lavish gilded chamber upholstered in red leather, with around 800 members - almost none of them elected by anyone.

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Image: GuarénDeBiblioteca | CC BY-SA 4.0

House of Lords: The Red Chamber

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Splloyd, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Lords Chamber is everything the Commons isn't. Where the Commons is small, green, and modestly furnished, the Lords is enormous, scarlet, and gilded. The benches are red leather. The walls are panelled in oak with bronze and gold. At the southern end stands the throne, used b...

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Image: Splloyd | CC BY-SA 4.0

House of Lords: Lords Temporal and Spiritual

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Albert Sydney, CC BY-SA 3.0. The members come in three flavours. Life peers - currently around 670 - are appointed by the monarch on the Prime Minister's advice, usually for political or public service, and hold their seats until they die or resign. Hereditary peers were almost all expelled in 1999 by the Bl...

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Image: Albert Sydney | CC BY-SA 3.0

House of Lords: What They Do

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Samuel Begg (1854–1936), Public domain. The Lords cannot stop legislation, only delay it. Under the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949, money bills can be delayed only a month, and other public bills for no more than one calendar year. The Lords cannot extend a Parliament's term beyond five years. By the Salisbury Conven...

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Image: Samuel Begg (1854–1936) | Public domain

House of Lords: The Old Courts

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Chensiyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0. Until 2009, the Lords also served as the United Kingdom's highest court. Twelve Law Lords - the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary, appointed for the purpose under the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876 - heard appeals in panels of five from English, Welsh, Northern Irish and Scottish cour...

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Image: Chensiyuan | CC BY-SA 4.0

House of Lords: Acasta Reform

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Rathfelder, CC BY-SA 4.0. Almost every twentieth-century government planned to reform the Lords; almost none succeeded. The Labour Party committed in its 1997 manifesto to removing the hereditary peerage, and Tony Blair's government did so in 1999 - but only as a compromise that left 92 hereditaries until...

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Image: Rathfelder | CC BY-SA 4.0

House of Lords: Standing Order 32

Sun, 24 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Theowrig, CC BY-SA 4.0. When the debate gets heated, a peer may rise and move that the Clerk read Standing Order 32: That all personal, sharp, or taxing speeches be forborn. The Journals of the House of Lords record only four occasions on which the order has actually been invoked since the procedure was...

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Image: Theowrig | CC BY-SA 4.0