The Composition of the House of Lords
The composition of the House of Lords is not too complicated, as the total number of the people that have the right to sit in this Upper House is close to 687, but this number is not fixed as there is no limit to it. However, not all of them get the right to sit in the House of Lords. The membership of the House of Lords is made from Lords Temporal and Lords Spiritual. These members are generally categorised into following groups: life peers, law lords, bishops and hereditary peers. The new peers or members are mainly “appointed” in the House of Lords, unlike how it is done in the House of Commons. The Lords Spiritual sit in this chamber due to their good relations and extensive work with the Church of England, whereas Lords Temporal form the remaining membership which mostly comprise of life peers. These life peers are appointed by the Monarch on the counsel of the Prime Minister or on the recommendation of the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Visit: House of Lords Website
Instructions
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As per the current composition of the House of Lords, the total number of members is close to 789. This comprise of 238 life peers and 4 hereditary peers from the Labour party, 170 life peers and 47 from the Conservative party, 153 life peers and 31 hereditary peers from the Crossbenchers, 88 life peers and 4 hereditary peers from the Liberal Democrats.
Aside from these members, there are 19 life peers and 1 hereditary peer from other parties, while Democratic Unionist and Ulster Unionist each have 4 life peers.
UKIP and Plaid Cymru are two groups, on the other hand, that have lowest representation in the House of Lords as both have 1 life peer each. However, UKIP has 1 hereditary peer as well in the composition of the House of Lords.
Therefore, the current total number of life peers in the composition of the House of Lords is 677, whereas the hereditary peers are 88 and Lords Spiritual are 24 in number.
