House of Lords Act 1999

House of Lords Act 1999

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Long title	An Act to restrict membership of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage; to make related provision about disqualifications for voting at elections to, and for membership of, the House of Commons; and for connected purposes.
Citation	1999 c. 34[1]
Introduced by	Margaret Beckett, Leader of the House of Commons[2] (Commons)
Territorial extent	England and Wales; Scotland; Northern Ireland
Dates
Royal assent	11 November 1999[3]
Commencement	11 November 1999[4]
Status: Current legislation
Text of statute as originally enacted
Revised text of statute as amended

The House of Lords Act 1999 (c. 34) is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that reformed the House of Lords, one of the chambers of Parliament. The Act was given Royal Assent on 11 November 1999.^[3] For centuries, the House of Lords had included several hundred members who inherited their seats (hereditary peers); the Act removed such a right. However, as part of a compromise, the Act did permit ninety-two hereditary peers to remain in the House. Another ten were created life peers to enable them to remain in the House.^[5]

The Act decreased the membership of the House from 1,330 in October 1999 to 669 in March 2000.^[6] As another result of the Act, the majority of the Lords were now life peers, whose numbers had been gradually increasing since the Life Peerages Act 1958.^[7] As of June 2023, there were 787 members of the House of Lords, of whom 25 were senior Church of England bishops,^[8] whose representation in the House is governed by the Lords Spiritual (Women) Act 2015.^[9]