At the end of the previous Parliamentary session late last month, those members of the House of Lords sitting by virtue of hereditary peerages lost that membership. Today, on the eve of the new session, the government announced that twenty-six of them will be given life peerages to allow them to be reintroduced. Fifteen of these are Conservatives, nine Crossbenchers and two Labour. There were no Liberal Democrats on the list, though two of their hereditary representatives — the Earl Russell and the Lord Addington — had already received the same gift in a different honours list in December.

The timing of this has some interesting implications: As Addington and Russell received their life peerages before their hereditary tickets were annulled, their membership of the upper house is continuous. The two-dozen reappointed after the event technically have had a break in service, so may need to undergo the introduction ceremony of a new peer to resume their seats. The standing orders prohibit more than six introductions per week, so re-seating all of these peers could take over a month. Some of the choices are pretty obvious, such as the Conservatives’ former leader Strathclyde and current deputy leader Howe. Others are less obvious. I presume there must have been a lot of backstage haggling between parties over how many life peerages would be awarded, as well as within parties to determine who would get them. In recent years the government has tended to publish “citations” for new life peers, including those who were peers already, but that element was absent from this list.

In 1999 when the bulk of hereditary peers were removed to leave only 92 elected representatives therefrom, a handful of such peers were given life peerages to exempt them from having to seek election. This broadly amounted to those who were former leaders of the house (such as Cranborne and Longford) and those who were the first of their title (such as Snowdon). I cannot work out any specifics that this rump-of-a-rump have in common, so I assume there was an informal ballot among the group or they were chosen at the leader/convener’s discretion. The list of survivors is also notable for who is absent from it; in particular I would have expected the Viscount Ridley to be there, as he is one of the relatively few peers (of any type) to achieve a degree of celebrity outside of Parliament.

Also notably absent were the Duke of Norfolk and the Lord Carrington, who hold respectively the offices of Earl Marshal and Lord Great Chamberlain. The 1999 Act had a special provision for these two to remain ex officio. The Earl Marshal is a hereditary title entailed to the Dukes of Norfolk since 1672 whereas the Lord Great Chamberlain position has, since Edwardian times, rotated at each demise of the crown. During Elizabeth II’s reign it was held by the Marquesses of Cholmondeley. David, 7th Marquess, held the tole from the death of his father in 1990 to the death of Queen Elizabeth in 2022. Parliament.UK makes clear that he lost his membership of the upper house on Charles III’s accession. Carrington assumed the office at that point, but he had already been elected as a Conservative peer in 2018. After 2022 he appears to have been occupying two seats at once as there was not a by-election for his previous position. On a similar note, it’s not clear if Addington and Russell (or, for that matter, Kinnoull) continued to be counted as representative hereditary peers after their life peerages had been conferred. The only meaningful way to test this would have been to call by-elections, but these had all been suspended when the recent legislation was been processed during the 2024-6 session. A handful of hereditary peers died or retired during this time without being replaced, so that the delegation was substantially below strength by the time the session ended.

There is, of course, already a Wikipedia page under construction for this list.