Life Peers in the UK: Respected or Rejected?

Factual Questions
1

Building on a recent informative thread about so called upper class naming conventions, I notice in the British newspapers there are constant mentions of life peers, and a seemingly never ending stream of politicos and millionaires who receive hnors such as “The Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare”.

To me personally, in the US, with my knowledge of English nobility frozen in the time of Shakespeare (Duke of Bedford anyone?) these life peerage titles sound funny, almost a parody of the entire system of titles.

So, how are these life peers viewed by the public? Are they taken seriously? They must be granted officially by the crown, but in practice are given out by the commons. Do the life peers get any street cred? Makes them more popular with girls?

And why are they giving out only life peerages; what about granting new hereditary peerages?

2

I don’t know about English society but I’ve read that in Germany, the old Ritter (knight) class of nobility is taken very seriously, and while rich people can buy titles of nobility, even a poor person descended from one of the families of old military nobility will be more socially prestigious than a billionaire social climber who bought his title.

3

Mostly, ignored, in my experience.

New peerages just aren’t a major part of British public life, unless they’re awarded to celebrities (and I can’t, offhand, think of any that have been so awarded) - peerages are usually given to ex-Prime Ministers, or party faithfuls, or occasionally people who are neither that either the Government or the Opposition would like to appoint to their front bench, people unable for a variety of reasons to get elected (e.g. Peter Mandelson)

Also, you can’t give new hereditary peerages, as I understand it - the hereditary peerage was abolished with the 92 exceptions currently sitting in the House of Lords, as part of the electoral reform pledged by New Labour when they came to power.

4

Over the history of the last 100+ years in Britain the Labour radicals have been trying to get rid of the House of Lords. Imaging a hereditary Senate where only white blue-bloods sit, based on family ties and connections, and decide the fate of the country. (Oh, wait a minute…)

There was a recent bill passed to reform the House of Lords. I suppose a British resident will set us straight on that one, but basically they (the Labour government) are trying to eliminate the right to sit in the upper house, especially the inherited right.

5

Um, depends who you are talking to. Yes, nobility gets always a page in the social press, and the store clerks and housewifes who gossip about Hollywood stars would be impressed by anybody with a von in their title. They would also be impressed by a millionaire, and I wonder if they would be able to tell that somebody bought his title. (Bought a castle, like the Kelly family, that would be well-known, but a castle is not a title).

For people of normal education, the first thing I think of with nobility today is that we should’ve done like the Austrians and done away with all titles, the second thing is that of criminals: people who let themselves be bribedand steal money while working for the conservative or liberatarian party. Or princes who assist right-wing circles. Or princeswho are so piss-drunk that they urinate in public (nicknamed pinkel-prinz = piss-prince for this).

So certainly nothing to admire.

6

Agreed

Some peerages have been given for contribution to the arts, and these probably count as celebrites - Lord (Richard, not David) Attenborough, Lord (Andrew, not Julian) Lloyd-Webber and Lord (Melvyn, not Billy) Bragg spring to mind. Eminent scientists, architects and businessmen also get peerages. Other categories are the senior judiciary,and the Lords Spiritual who are the 26 bishops of the Church of England. I believe that the last few Chief Rabbis have been given peerages too.

I don’t think there’s anything to prevent a new hereditary peerage being created, but it hasn’t been done for a couple of decades.

7

Yeah, the number of hereditary peers was restricted to 92, chosen by ballot from amongst their number. There’s been various white papers on further reform, but the next step is not clear.

8

Let’s correct something: If I’m not mistaken, the restriction of hereditary peers to 92 refers to who sits in the House of Lords, not who is or can be a hereditoary peer. That is, just as most people whould consider Bill Clinton, Al Gore, Dick Cheney, and Sarah Palin more politically significant than, say, Mike Crapo or Claire McCaskill, the latter two have a particular privilege the fomer four do not (well, Clinton has a courtesy claim to the floor) – they have the right to voice and vote in the U.S. Senate as sitting senators. So too in the U.K. the Queen is not precluded from creating someone a viscount(/ess) with reversion to his or her heirs on his or he death, but only the 92 persons elected by the other peers have voice and vote in the Lords. (She is much more likely to create a life peer, but retains the right to create a hereditary peerage when she finds it appropriate.)

I may be wrong on this, as I don’t fully understand exactly what happened in Lords reform. But that’s the impression I’ve formed.

9

This is correct. I just now realised that my post should have explicitly stated this.

10

Retired Prime Ministers used to be offered an earldom (occasionally dominion PMs were offered viscountships), but that ceased in the '80s (Margaret Thatcher was only made baroness for life). The practice has ceased except for members of the Royal Family (princes are usually granted dukedoms upon marriage, and male commoners are offered earldoms upon marriage to a princess). William and Harry will get dukedoms when they marry and Beatrice and Eugenie’s husbands will probally be offered earldoms. Anne’s children have no titles because their father declined the earldom and Edward’s requested that his children only be styled as children of an earl, but they could choose to use their higher styles as adults.

11

Most life peers have considerably more power than most hereditary peers, and, consequently, are almost certain to get more real respect (as opposed to ceremonial flummery). Most life peerages are political appointments: they are a way of giving someone a seat in parliament, for life, without them ever having to be elected by anyone (although many life peers were, formerly, elected members of the House of Commons). Admittedly they are in the House of Lords, which has considerably less power than the House of Commons, but it has real power nonetheless. Being in the Lords also means that life peers can serve as Cabinet Ministers (and non-cabinet ministers), and they frequently do. Sometimes people are appointed as life peers specifically so that they can be in the Cabinet.*

Although hereditary peers can also sit and vote in the House of Lords, and some do, many don’t bother because they are simply not very interested in politics, and, in practice, even those who do bother are mostly considerably less influential than the life peers. Life peers are mostly people who have been professional politicians most of their life (or, sometimes, very successful business people with strong political interests, or powerful trade union leaders, and things like that); they understand and care about politics, and have the contacts. A hereditary peer is just some dude who inherited a title; even if he cares about politics, and votes and makes speeches in the House of Lords, he is unlikely to have either the political energy or influence that life peers generally do have.

The Law Lords - in effect Britain’s Supreme Court - are also life peers (and also get to be members of the House of Lords).

*In Britain, it is the Cabinet that really controls the country, and, apart from being the actual Prime Minister, being a Cabinet Minister is the is the peak of political power. Cabinet members, and all other ministers, normally must be Members of Parliament - Commons or Lords. Very occasionally non-members do get appointed to Cabinet or other ministries, but if that happens, either a life peerage is quickly arranged for them, or some MP in a very safe party seat will be “kicked upstairs” to be a life peer so that his/her Commons seat becomes available, and the new minister can win an easy by-election to the Commons.

12

Denis Thatcher was made a baronet which is not a peerage but is hereditary.

I doubt Mark Thatcher gets much respect.

13

The vast majority of hereditary peers do not sit and vote in the House of Lords. Only the 92 who qualify under the 1999 House of Lords Act do so. Moreover, almost all those 92 qualify by being elected. True, they are elected by the other hereditary peers. But that does mean that those hereditaries who do sit in the Lords are almost always those keen to take an active interest. To no one’s great surprise, only those who wanted to continue to attend bothered to put their names forward when the hereditaries were balloted and the others tended to vote for those candidates who had already proved themselves to be the most active peers.

Conversely, quite a few life peers are notoriously inactive. One of the problems in appointing prominent public figures as life peers is that they already lead busy lives and so may not be able to spare the time. What one might call the ‘Lord Sugar Problem’. Or they are retired politicians who, having spent a career actively involved in politics, are reluctant to treat the Lords as a full-time job.

There is no ‘in effect’ about it - the former Law Lords actually are the Supreme Court. Moreover, although the twelve Justices have life peerages, they are now barred from sitting in the Lords.

So, are life peers respected? Usually only in so far as whatever it was that got them that peerage in the first place deserves to be. Few have public profiles based primarily on their work in the House of Lords. So, if they are known at all, it is for other reasons. Good or bad.

14

Tell me this. Has there been a hereditary peer in the cabinet since Lord Carrington in the early 1980s? (I don’t know, I have been in America for the last 20 years, but I doubt it.) Have there been any hereditary peers in any other ministerial positions in that period? How many life peers have been in the cabinet or other ministerial positions in that time? I will lay odds it is a lot more than there have been hereditary ones.

15

While there have indeed been hereditary peers in the Cabinet since Lord Carrington (and there is one in the current Shadow Cabinet), it is of course true that most ministerial peers are now life peers.

But when I said that few peers ‘have public profiles based primarily on their work in the House of Lords’, I meant exactly that. Take, for example, Lord Mandelson. His work in the Lords is one of the least important aspects of his current role. That he has a life peerage is simply an incidental by-product of the conventions about membership of the Cabinet; it is what he does when he is not sitting in the Lords that really matters. Ministerial life peers fall into two categories. Those who have public profiles based primarily on their work outside the Lords. And those who have no public profiles at all.

Given that the OP is asking about how life peers are perceived, those who barely register on the public consciousness can’t be said to be that relevant to the issue.

16

The British convention is that the heads of Government departments are appointed by Her Majesty (on the advice of the P.M.) and answerable to Parliament. That means that they have to be able to appear in Parliament to be asked and answer questions about their department, to make speeches outlining and defending their department’s policy, etc. To appear in Parliament and engage in debate, you need to be a member of a House of Parliament. There are two ways to do this: stand for a seat in the Commons, or hold a peerage entitling one to a seat in the Lords. For the expert on insurance who has agreed to be Minister of Insurance but has no interest in contesting the seat for Blackpool or Llantwit Major, the obvious answer is to have H.M. make him a life peer, so he can speak in the Lords.

17

Do we even still have something like a formal Ritterwürde/knighthood anymore? Cause if we do, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone bearing that title…

18

Who, apart from you, is making this about whether life peers are known or respected primarily for what they do in the House?

So, in fact, you agree with what was my original point, that a life peer is far more likely to be a politically powerful person than a hereditary peer.

Life peers are either people who are already well known and widely admired, who are given their peerage to honor them, or else they are politicians appointed for political reasons, usually either so they can be a minister or to do some job for their party in the House of Lords. (None of these reasons are mutually exclusive.) Those in the first group are already respected. Those in the second may not all be famous, but they are all politically powerful, at least when first appointed, and will undoubtedly get respect for that from anyone who has dealings with them. Such considerations do not apply to hereditary peers. Many of them have neither significant political power or non-political achievements to their name.

19

Let me assure you that this particular peer is not well respected…

Edit: As that’s probably not clear enough to a non UK reader, a google of his accomplishments may be interesting reading.

20

Perhaps this isn’t clear to non-Brits here, but my impression (from three years living in the U.K.) is that the vast majority of Brits don’t remotely care about peers regardless of what period their peerage is over. If your question is whether there is any significant number of people to whom the difference between life peers and hereditary peers is important, the answer is no. Most Brits are unlikely to ever even meet a peer, and they wouldn’t give them any particular respect if they did meet them.