Life Peerages Act 1958

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The Life Peerages Act 1958 (6 & 7 Eliz II c. 21) established the modern standards for the creation of life peers by the monarch of the United Kingdom. Life peers are barons and are members of the House of Lords for life, but their titles and membership in the Lords are not inherited by their children. Judicial life peers already sat in the House under the terms of the Appellate Jurisdiction Act 1876. The Life Peerages Act vastly increased the ability of the Prime Minister to change the composition of the House of Lords and considerably lessened the dominance of hereditary "part-time" peers.

The Act allowed for the creation of female peers; the first such women peers sat in the House of Lords from 21 October 1958.^[1]

Before the Act was passed, former Prime Ministers were created earls (which are hereditary peerages) in gratitude for their public service in high office. The last Prime Minister to be made an Earl was Harold Macmillan under the Thatcher government in the 1980s. A life peer is created by the Queen by Letters Patent under the Great Seal on the advice of the Prime Minister. Because the Prime Minister decides who is to be a life peer, there appear to be no longer any circumstances under which a Prime Minister can seek guarantees from the Sovereign to create hereditary peerages to flood the House of Lords to secure the passage of important Government legislation (such as happened during the crisis over the Parliament Act 1911).