Excepted hereditary peers: How active are they in the House of Lords?

Approximate read time: 7 minutes

Under the provisions of the House of Lords Act 1999, up to 90 ‘excepted’ hereditary peers can sit in the House of Lords, as can hereditary peers holding the offices of earl marshal and lord great chamberlain. The government has introduced the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill to remove the right of these hereditary peers to sit in the House.

Further information on the bill can be found in the House of Lords Library briefing, ‘House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill’ (10 October 2024).

1. How many excepted hereditary peers sit in the House?

Over one in ten members of the House of Lords are hereditary peers. As at 16 October 2024, there are 89 excepted hereditary peers in the House, out of a total 829 members. Of these 89 hereditary peers, 88 are currently eligible to attend proceedings and one member is on leave of absence. Removing all hereditary peers would reduce the size of the House from 829 to 740 members (716 of whom are currently eligible to attend).

2. To which parties and groups do excepted hereditary peers belong?

Over half of hereditary peers are Conservatives and a third are Crossbenchers, while relatively few are members of other parties, as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. Excepted hereditary peers by party/group, as at 16 October 2024

3. How many male and female hereditary peers are there?

All the current excepted hereditary peers are men. Since the 1999 act, there have been five female hereditary peers and 148 male hereditary peers. The five female hereditary peers were among the original excepted hereditary peers chosen to remain in the House in 1999. All five have since died or retired. No women have joined the House through a hereditary by-election.

Further information on women and hereditary peerages can be found in the House of Lords Library briefing, ‘Women, hereditary peerages and gender inequality in the line of succession’ (3 October 2022).

4. How old are hereditary peers?

The average age of current hereditary peers is 69 years, compared with 71 for life peers and the House as a whole. The youngest hereditary peer is 38 and the oldest is 93. There are 36 members in the House aged under 50, three of whom are hereditary peers (8%). The age range of hereditary peers is shown in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Age of excepted hereditary peers as at 16 October 2024

5. How long have hereditary peers been members of the House of Lords?

On average, hereditary peers have served in the House for 21 years, while life peers have served for 14 years. However, the length of service of hereditary peers varies considerably. 34 of the current excepted hereditary peers joined the House prior to the 1999 reforms with 55 joining afterwards. Out of the 55 members who joined since 1999, 18 were rejoining the House, having previously sat as hereditary peers before 1999.

The ten members with the longest service in the House are all hereditary peers, with a combined service of over 500 years. Over a third of current hereditary peers have been members for 30 years or more. However, not all hereditary peers have been members for decades: a third of excepted hereditary peers joined the House less than 10 years ago.

Figure 2. Number of years that hereditary peers have served in the House of Lords

6. How often do hereditary peers attend sittings of the House?

During the 2019–24 parliament, some members were not eligible to attend every sitting day, for example, those who left, joined or were on leave of absence during the parliament. On average, hereditary peers attended 49% of the sittings they were eligible to attend, slightly more than life peers (47% eligible attendance). Bishops and judicial life peers (those originally appointed to serve as judges) attended less frequently, as shown in Table 2 below.

Table 2. Average eligible attendance by peerage type

Attendance patterns varied among individual hereditary peers, as shown in Figure 3 below. A third of hereditary peers attended on at least 70% of the sitting days they were eligible to attend, a similar proportion to life peers. Three out of ten hereditary peers attended less than 40% of the time, compared with four in ten life peers.

Figure 3. Percentage of sittings attended by current hereditary peers during the 2019–24 parliament

7. How often do hereditary peers vote in divisions?

There were 632 divisions (votes) in the House of Lords during the 2019–24 parliament. On average hereditary peers (51%) and life peers (49%) participated in approximately half of the divisions they were eligible to vote in. The membership, as a whole, voted in 47% of eligible divisions. Bishops and judicial life peers participated less frequently, with each group voting in less than 10% of the divisions they were eligible to participate in. It is important to note that some members with official roles, such as the lord speaker, do not vote and that abstentions are not recorded.

Table 3. Average eligible division participation by peerage type

While on average hereditary peers participated in half of divisions for which they were eligible, participation rates varied between individual members. A third of hereditary peers voted in over 70% of divisions but one in ten hereditary peers voted in less than 10% of divisions they were eligible to participate in, as shown in Figure 4 below.

Figure 4. Rates of division participation by hereditary peers during the 2019–24 parliament

8. How often do hereditary peers speak in the House of Lords?

Members of the House made spoken contributions on 65 sitting days, on average, over the 2019–24 parliament. Members spoke on 10% of the days they were eligible to attend and 19% of the days they actually attended.

On average, hereditary peers spoke on fewer days than life peers, 48 days compared with 70 days. Bishops and judicial life peers spoke on the fewest days, at 31 and 12 respectively, as shown in Table 4 below.

Table 4. Average spoken contribution days by peerage type

However, while bishops spoke in the House on fewer days than hereditary peers and life peers, on the days that they did attend the House they were twice as likely to speak. On average, they spoke on 41% of the days they attended. In contrast, life peers spoke on 18%, and hereditary and judicial peers 14%, of the days they attended.

Table 5. Average spoken contribution days as a proportion of days attended by peerage type

Spoken contribution rates varied between individual hereditary peers. Over half of hereditary peers spoke on less than one in ten of the days they were eligible to attend. However, some hereditary peers spoke more regularly, as shown in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5. Days on which hereditary peers spoke as a percentage of days they were eligible to speak

9. How many hereditary peers are members of committees?

During the 2019–2024 parliament, 57 out of the 89 current hereditary peers (64%) were members of at least one committee. A similar proportion of current life peers, six in ten, were committee members. Fewer bishops and judicial life peers, three in ten, served on committees during the parliament.

10. Data sources

These statistics are based on House of Lords Library analysis of data from the following sources:

• House of Lords membership data, which is available from the UK Parliament members API
• House of Lords data on votes/divisions, which is available from the Lords votes API
• House of Lords members’ oral contributions from Parliamentary Search(parliamentary login required)
• Members’ attendance data provided by the House of Lords Journal Office

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Cover image by Roger Harris / Copyright House of Lords 2019.