House of Lords data dashboard: Current membership of the House
This page provides interactive data on the current membership of the House of Lords.

According to the Salisbury Convention, the House of Lords gives a second reading to government bills that seek to implement manifesto commitments, does not subject manifesto bills to wrecking amendments and returns manifesto bills to the Commons in reasonable time. This House of Lords Library Briefing examines the development of the convention and looks at the debates on how it applied after the 2010 and 2017 general elections, which both produced a hung parliament.
Salisbury Convention: A Decade of Developments (336 KB , PDF)
The Salisbury Convention is commonly understood to mean the House of Lords gives a second reading to government bills that seek to implement manifesto commitments, does not subject them to wrecking amendments and returns them to the Commons in reasonable time. It is also sometimes called the Salisbury-Addison Convention.
The convention arose from an understanding between the leaders of the Labour and Conservative parties in the House of Lords after the 1945 general election. At that time, Labour had a majority in the House of Commons but the Conservatives had a majority in the Lords. The modern expression of the convention was set out by the Joint Committee on Conventions in 2006.
The Salisbury Convention relates to a government’s manifesto bills. This is based on the idea that manifesto bills have a special form of democratic legitimacy as they have been voted for by the electorate. There is a recognition that it is not always straightforward to identify which bills should be classed as manifesto bills, especially as modern manifestos tend to be more complex than in 1945 when the convention originated. However, it has also been pointed out that in practice the Lords does not usually block any government bill, regardless of whether it is a manifesto bill.
The 2010 and 2017 general elections both produced hung parliaments. This gave rise to questions about whether the Salisbury Convention applies to a coalition or minority government.
In 2017, the minority Conservative Government argued the Salisbury Convention should apply to its manifesto pledges. Other parties in the Lords were not convinced of this argument but acknowledged the Lords would be mindful of the balance of power between the two Houses. During the 2017–19 parliament, Brexit supporters claimed that Lords amendments to the European Union (Withdrawal) Bill and the Data Protection Bill were ‘wrecking amendments’ that violated the Salisbury Convention. Others argued that in making these amendments, the Lords was fulfilling its constitutional role by asking the Commons to think again.
In 2010, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government initially asserted the convention still applied, although others across the House felt it was not so clear-cut. In 2011, the Government acknowledged the convention did not operate in the same way with the advent of a coalition government. Two parliamentary committees both concluded that a coalition agreement made after an election had produced a hung parliament did not have the same status as a manifesto. During the period of the Coalition Government, there were attempts to block three government bills at second reading in the Lords, all of which failed.
Salisbury Convention: A Decade of Developments (336 KB , PDF)
This page provides interactive data on the current membership of the House of Lords.
The government’s House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill would remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House of Lords and abolish its jurisdiction in hereditary peerage claims. The bill completed its Commons stages unamended and was introduced in the House of Lords in November 2024. The bill’s second reading in the Lords took place on 11 December 2024. This briefing provides an overview of that debate and lists the areas which future amendments could focus on.
The House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC) vets nominations to the House and recommends non-party political members. While its advice is usually followed, it is not a statutory body and the prime minister can choose to disregard its advice. This briefing provides an overview of the role and powers of the commission and summarises recent debates concerning its reform.