The House of Lords is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminster in London, England. Membership is generally attained for life through political or non-political appointments or by holding certain ecclesiastical offices. Since 1999, the House of Lords has also comprised a reduced number of hereditary peers elected by internal by-elections or appointed upon succession as the Earl Marshal or Lord Great Chamberlain. As such, since 1999, membership of the House of Lords has not been attainable on a purely hereditary basis.
The Peerage Act 1963 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that permits women peeresses and all Scottish hereditary peers to sit in the House of Lords and allows newly inherited hereditary peerages to be disclaimed.
James Michael Leathes Prior, Baron Prior, was a British Conservative Party politician. A Member of Parliament from 1959 to 1987, he represented the Suffolk constituency of Lowestoft until 1983 and then the renamed constituency of Waveney from 1983 to 1987, when he stood down from the House of Commons and was made a life peer. He served in two Conservative cabinets, and outside parliament was Chairman of the Arab British Chamber of Commerce from 1996 to 2004.
Gregory Leonard George Barker, Baron Barker of Battle, is a British Conservative Party politician and life peer. In May 2010 he was appointed Minister of State for Energy and Climate Change, a role in which he served until 2014. At the following year's general election he stood down as MP for Bexhill and Battle and was appointed to the House of Lords.
Peter Temple-Morris, Baron Temple-Morris was a British politician. He was elected as the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Leominster in 1974; he stood down in 2001 after changing parties. He sat in the House of Lords as a Labour peer. He died on 1 May 2018 aged 80.
Archibald Gavin Hamilton, Baron Hamilton of Epsom, is a British Conservative Party politician. A member of the House of Lords, he served as Minister of State for the Armed Forces under John Major.
Robert Michael James Gascoyne-Cecil, 7th Marquess of Salisbury, Baron Gascoyne-Cecil,, is a British Conservative politician. From 1979 to 1987 he represented South Dorset in the House of Commons, and in the 1990s he was Leader of the House of Lords under his courtesy title of Viscount Cranborne. Lord Salisbury lives in one of England's largest historic houses, the 17th-century Hatfield House in Hertfordshire, and currently serves as Chancellor of the University of Hertfordshire.
David Arthur Russell Howell, Baron Howell of Guildford, is a British Conservative Party politician, journalist, and economic consultant. Having been successively Secretary of State for Energy and then for Transport under Margaret Thatcher, Howell has more recently been a Minister of State in the Foreign Office from the election in 2010 until the reshuffle of 2012. He has served as Chair of the House of Lords International Relations Committee since May 2016. Along with William Hague, Sir George Young and Kenneth Clarke, he is one of the few Cabinet ministers from the 1979–97 governments who continued to hold high office in the party, being its deputy leader in the House of Lords until 2010. His daughter, Frances, was married to the former Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne.
Malcolm Everard MacLaren Pearson, Baron Pearson of Rannoch is a British businessman and former Leader of the UK Independence Party (UKIP). He sits as an independent member of the House of Lords. A Eurosceptic, he was a staunch supporter of pro-Brexit campaign Leave Means Leave.
Robert Alexander Lindsay, 29th Earl of Crawford, 12th Earl of Balcarres, Baron Balniel,, known by courtesy as Lord Balniel between 1940 and 1975, was a Scottish hereditary peer and Conservative politician who was a member of Parliament from 1955 to 1974. Lord Crawford and Balcarres was chief of Clan Lindsay and also acted, from 1975 to 2019, as Premier Earl of Scotland.
David Campbell Bannerman is a British Conservative Party politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East of England from 2009 to 2019. He is currently Chairman of The Freedom Association. He served as Deputy Leader of UK Independence Party (UKIP) from 2006 until 2010, when he was replaced by Paul Nuttall.
Mohamed Iltaf Sheikh, Baron Sheikh was a British politician and businessman. He was formerly an insurance broker and underwriter.
John Robert Louis Lee, Baron Lee of Trafford, DL is a British Liberal Democrat politician, who has sat as a life peer since 2006.
David Wigley Nickson, Baron Nickson, is a British businessman, a former crossbench peer and a former President of the Confederation of British Industry. He was Chairman of the Clydesdale Bank, Scottish & Newcastle, Scottish Enterprise and the Government's Senior Salaries Review Body.
Leopold David Verney, 21st Baron Willoughby de Broke,, is a British hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords.
William Legge, 10th Earl of Dartmouth, styled Viscount Lewisham from 1962 to 1997, is a British politician and hereditary peer, usually known as William Dartmouth.
Guy Vaughan Black, Baron Black of Brentwood is Deputy Chairman of the Telegraph Media Group.
Geoffrey Robert James Borwick, 5th Baron Borwick, is a British businessman, hereditary peer and member of the House of Lords.
Following the enactment of the House of Lords Act 1999, the number of hereditary peers entitled to sit in the House of Lords was reduced to ninety-two. The Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain were entitled to set 'ex officio; the remaining ninety were elected by all the hereditary peers before the passing of the reform. Since November 2002, by-elections have been held to fill vacancies left by deaths, resignations or disqualifications of those peers. Since the passing of the House of Lords Reform Act 2014, by-elections have also been held to fill vacancies left by the retirements of those peers.
