ABSTRACT
ANSWER The anomalous position of the House of Lords in a modern democracy is perhaps its most remarkable feature: not one member of the UK Parliament’s second chamber is elected. All hold their positions either through birth, appointment or the office they hold. There are still these three main groups in the Lords, although following the House of Lords Act 1999, the balance between the life and hereditary peers has swung dramatically in the former’s favour. As at 1 July 2010, the House numbered 722 peers, of whom 605 are life peers and only 91 are hereditaries, those selected for retention by a vote of the hereditary peers only. The Law Lords have now been removed from the House and make up the membership of the new Supreme Court, under the provisions of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005.
