ABSTRACT
The House of Lords serves as the second chamber in a bicameral legislature. The bicameral system that the United Kingdom now enjoys has been described as one of asymmetrical bicameralism: in other words, there are two chambers, but one is politically inferior to the other. The subordinate position of the House of Lords to the House of Commons was thus established. Until the passage of the House of Lords Act, which removed most hereditary peers from membership, the House of Lords had more than 1,000 members, making it the largest regularly sitting legislative chamber in the world. In terms of composition, the 1958 Act made possible a substantial increase in the number of Labour members. Labour peers in the Lords established a working party to review the powers, procedures and conventions of the House. The House fulfils the functions of both manifest and latent legitimisation, but it does so on a modest scale.
