Representative Peer

Representative Peer

In the United Kingdom, representative peers were those peers elected by the members of the Peerage of Scotland and the Peerage of Ireland to sit in the British House of Lords. Members of the Peerage of England, Peerage of Great Britain and Peerage of the United Kingdom held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives.

Representative peers were introduced in 1707, when England and Scotland were united into the Kingdom of Great Britain. At the time, there were 168 English and 154 Scottish peers, though the English population was significantly higher than the Scottish population (estimated at roughly five times greater). The English peers feared that the House of Lords would be swamped by the Scottish element, and consequently arranged for the election of a small number of representative peers to represent Scotland. A similar arrangement was adopted when the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland merged into the United Kingdom in 1801.

Scotland was allowed to elect sixteen representative peers, while Ireland could elect twenty-eight. Those chosen by Scotland sat for a single term, and following each dissolution new Scottish peers were elected. In contrast Irish representative peers sat for life. Elections for Irish peers ceased when the Irish Free State gained independence in 1922, however already-elected Irish peers continued to be entitled to sit until their death. Elections for Scottish peers ended in 1963, when all Scottish peers obtained the right to sit in the House of Lords.

Under the 1999 House of Lords Act, a new form of representative peer was introduced to allow some hereditary peers to stay in the House of Lords.