[Barry the Sprout]

Right - as far as I'm aware...

We still have 92 hereditary peers, 12 Law Lords, and a few Lords Spiritual (Bishops of the Church of England). The rest of the house is Life Peers and they are appointed, basically, by the Prime Minister. There are certain convetions that operate though. Once they are retired any former PMs or Chancellors of the Exchequer are appointed Life Peers for example.

As to their powers, they have the ability to delay a bill for a year effectively. Once they have done this three times over the Executive is allowed to invoke the Parliament Act and bypass them. Mostly this is far too long-winded as it delays contraversial legislation by 3 years. So a compromise is normally reached where the Lords get a few key ammendments and then they let it pass. Or sometimes the Exec just drops the matter - this happened to Thatcher a lot.

Also they are unable to touch financial legislation, the Parliament act means it completely bypasses them. And it is convention that they don't argue with anything in the parties manifesto when it comes up as a bill.

So their powers are limited, but they are still one hell of a potent force in UK politics - something not many people realise.

[ 03-02-2002: Message edited by: Barry the Sprout ]