In comparison, the composition of the House of Lords is both complex and controversial. It is complex because there are four distinct bases for membership of the House, meaning that there are four kinds of peers: life peers, hereditary peers, ‘Lords Spiritual’ and law lords. It is controversial because none of these peers are elected. The current membership stems from the House of Lords Act 1999, which removed most (but not all) of the previously dominant hereditary peers. The life peers are peers who are entitled to sit in the Lords for their own lifetimes. They are appointed under the Life Peerages act 1958, and many Prime Ministers have been suspected of making people who support them financially life peers, the so-called “Cash for honours” scandals. Hereditary peers are peers who hold inherited titles which also carry the right to sit in the House of Lords. Once there were more than 700 hereditary peers, but since 1999 only 92 are permitted to sit. The ‘Lords Spiritual’ are bishops and archbishops of the church of England. They are 26 in number, and they have been traditionally appointed by the Prime Minister, a power that Gordon Brown did not want the Prime Minister to have. Since the setting up of the Supreme Court, the House of Lords has not been the highest court of appeal in the UK. However, the members of the Supreme Court remain members of the House of Lords at the moment, the law lords, but upon their deaths new judges will be appointed who are not from the House.
The House of Commons is politically and legally the dominant chamber of Parliament, as it is the elected chamber. This applies to such an extent that the Commons is sometimes taken to be identical with Parliament itself. However, a distinction should be made between the formal powers of the House, enshrined in law and constitutional theory, and its political significance. The two key powers of the House of Commons are: The House of Commons has supreme legislative power. In theory, the Commons can make, unmake and amend any law it wishes, with the Lords only being able to delay these laws. The legal sovereignty of Parliament is thus exercised in practice by the Commons, subject only to the higher authority of EU law and treaties. The House of Commons have the greatest power to question the executive. They alone can remove the executive from power. This power is based on the convention of collective responsibility. A government that is defeated in the commons on a major issue or matter of confidence is obliged to resign or to call a general election. The last time this happened was the Callaghan Labour government in 1979. However, current proposals by the coalition may make it more difficult to defeat the executive with a vote of no confidence, by increasing the number needed to vote the government out to 55%.
The House of Lords has some legislative powers. These powers are set out in the Parliament Acts of 1911 and 1949. The House of Lords can delay bills passed by the House of Commons for up to two years. One example of this is their refusal to pass the Fox Hunting bill. However, the House of Lords cannot delay ‘money bills’ (a bill that contains significant financial measures) and, by the Salisbury convention, the House of Lords cannot defeat measures that are outlined in the government’s election manifesto. The House of Lords also possesses some veto powers that cannot be overridden by the Commons. These were put in place as a safeguard against dictatorship, and if the coalition makes the House of Lords an elected chamber it is likely that it would be given more and greater powers. These powers include the extension to the life of Parliament, through delays to general elections and the introduction of secondary or delegated legislation.
In conclusion, the main way in which the House of Lords differs from the House of Commons is that the former is unelected, whereas the latter is elected. However, the government plans to reform the House of Lords and make it at least partially elected, but there is argument within the coalition as to how to do this. The Liberal Democrats want a fully elected chamber, but the Conservatives want it only partially elected.
