The Queen and Prince Charles sitting in the House of Lords Chamber while the Queen is giving the Speech. They are wearing reduced ceremonial outfits.

What is a peerage?

A peerage is a type of honour created by the Crown.

There are five types of peerage that the Crown can create: dukedom; marquisate; earldom, viscountcy; and barony. A person can hold several of these titles at different times during their life.

Peerages can be either hereditary (ie can be passed on to heirs) or lifetime in nature. A life peerage remains with a person for the duration of their life only and cannot be passed on.

The Government can create life peerages using the Life Peerages Act 1958, the basis on which most members of the House of Lords sit today. Life peerages made under the act are barons and baronesses appointed by the Crown on the advice of the prime minister. Opposition party leaders can also recommend individuals from their own parties to receive life peerages.

Not all peers sit in the House of Lords. The House of Lords Act 1999 withdrew this right from most hereditary peers, with only 92 excepted hereditary peers now allowed to remain members at any time.

Life peers make up the majority of the House of Lords membership. At the time of writing, parliamentary data on current Lords membership states that of the 767 members eligible to attend proceedings, 655 are life peers and 87 are hereditary peers, with the remaining 25 being Lords Spiritual (bishops).

Further information on types of peerages can be found in the following Lords Library briefings:

Can a peerage be removed?

Yes, it is possible to remove a peerage. However, as described in Gadd’s Peerage Law, once the Crown has granted a peerage it is “very difficult to deprive the holder of it”.

Peerages are created by letters patent: a legal document issued by the Sovereign and adorned with the Great Seal. The Great Seal (formally known as the Great Seal of the Realm) is the chief seal of the Crown. It is used to show the monarch’s approval of state documents. As explained in Halsbury’s Laws of England, the Crown does not have the power to cancel a peerage once it has been created.

A peerage can only be removed by an act of parliament. The most recent act that did this was the Titles Deprivation Act 1917 (TDA).

The TDA received royal assent on 8 November 1917. It was used to remove British peerages from “enemies” of the UK during the First World War. Specifically, section one introduced powers to remove a peerage from anyone who had “during the present war, borne arms against His Majesty or His Allies, or who have adhered to His Majesty’s enemies”.

The act meant that any peer suspected of assisting the enemy could be investigated by a committee of the privy council who would then lay a report in both Houses of Parliament for 40 days. If this period elapsed without either House tabling a motion disapproving the report, the report would be taken as final and presented to the monarch. The peer would then be struck off the peerage roll and would have all rights to receive a ‘writ of summons’ and sit in the House of Lords removed. The writ of summons is the mechanism by which an eligible peer takes up their seat in the House of Lords. The TDA also meant that the rights to any peerage title would be removed.

On 28 March 1919, the London Gazette published the names of four people who had their peerages removed under the Titles Deprivation Act 1917:

  • Leopold Charles, Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence and Baron Arklow;
  • Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale, Earl of Armagh;
  • Ernest Augustus, Duke of Brunswick, Prince of Great Britain and Ireland; and
  • Henry, Viscount Taaffe of Corren and Baron of Ballymote.

The TDA still remains in force to date. However, as the act refers specifically to the First World War, it is unlikely that its provisions could be used today.

Has any recent legislation been introduced to remove peerages?

No new laws to remove peerages have commenced since the TDA. However, several acts of parliament have been introduced to cancel or suspend a person’s membership of the House of Lords in certain circumstances.

For example, the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 ensures that a member convicted of a serious offence will cease to be a member of the House. A ‘serious offence’ means a criminal offence where the member has been sentenced for one year or more, or ordered to be detained indefinitely. ‘Ceasing to be a member’ means that the person is disqualified from attending House proceedings and is no longer entitled to receive a writ of summons, nor can they attend in pursuance of a writ already received. However, their peerage title remains.

The act brought the House of Lords onto the same footing as the House of Commons, whereby any MP convicted and imprisoned for one year or more is automatically disqualified from the House of Commons and their seat vacated. This is provided by the Representation of the People Act 1981. The House of Lords Reform Act 2014 was initially introduced in the House of Commons as a private member’s bill by Dan Byles (then Conservative MP for North Warwickshire).

Following the commencement of the 2014 act, the updated House of Lords Code of Conduct provides that any member who is imprisoned in the UK will be deemed to have breached the code. Therefore, if a member’s conviction does not fall within the remit of the 2014 act (for example, where the sentence received is less than 12 months imprisonment), their case will be referred to the House of Lords Conduct Committee for it to recommend a sanction. The code includes similar provisions for members sentenced to imprisonment outside of the UK.

Most recently, the House of Lords (Expulsion and Suspension) Act 2015 enabled the House to expel or suspend a member by resolution in circumstances other than for non-attendance or being sentenced to over a year in prison (as already provided for by the House of Lords Reform Act 2014). Those expelled would cease to be a member of the House, whereas those suspended would not be entitled to receive a writ of summons during the suspension period. The 2015 act started as a private member’s bill introduced in the House of Lords by Baroness Hayman (Crossbench).

Can a member relinquish their peerage?

A life peerage cannot be relinquished. However, the House of Lords Reform Act 2014 enables a life peer to resign from being a member of the House.

There are also limited circumstances where hereditary peerages can be ‘disclaimed’. The Peerage Act 1963 enables hereditary peers to renounce their titles for life. The 1963 act sets out requirements that must be met to do this.

To disclaim a peerage, the person must deliver an ‘instrument of disclaimer’ to the lord chancellor. This must be done within 12 months beginning on the day that the person succeeds to that peerage. The only exception to this time limit would be if the person is under 21 years old, in which case the 12 month time limit would begin on their 21st birthday. Once the instrument has been delivered, the hereditary peerage would be renounced for their life.

Tony Benn was the first person to renounce a hereditary peerage under the 1963 act. He did this on 31 July 1963, the day that the act came into force.

Can other types of honour be removed?

Yes, other honours such as knighthoods can be removed.

Halsbury’s Laws of England states that the Crown has the power to cancel and annul honours it has previously granted, with the monarch acting on the formal advice of the prime minister. Honours can be forfeited where a person is deemed to have brought the honours system into disrepute; for instance, where they have received a criminal conviction.

A recommendation for the forfeiture of an honour can be made by contacting the Cabinet Office. Recommendations are then considered on an individual basis by the Honours Forfeiture Committee. The committee will not decide if someone is guilty, but instead considers if the honours system has been brought into disrepute. The committee’s recommendations for forfeiture are then presented by the prime minister to the monarch. If the monarch approves the recommendation, a notice of forfeiture is published in the London Gazette.

Recent examples of forfeited honours include the removal of Fred Goodwin’s knighthood in 2012 following his involvement in the near-collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland.

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Cover image: copyright House of Lords 2019 / Photography by Roger Harris.