The Conservatives tried to introduce life peerages to modernise the House of Lords, give it more legitimacy, and respond to a decline in its numbers and attendance.

[1] The Labour Party opposed the Life Peerages Bill on Second Reading: Hugh Gaitskell made an impassioned speech against the proposals, arguing for a far more fundamental reform such as total dismantling of the Lords or a wholly elected house.

[1] Prior to the Life Peerages Act 1958, membership in the House of Lords was strictly male and overwhelmingly based on possession of a hereditary title.

The first four such women peers were: Barbara Wootton and Stella Isaacs, who were sworn in on 21 October 1958, and Katharine Elliot and Irene Curzon, who took office the next day.

The last prime minister and the last non-royal to be created an earl was coincidentally one of the 1958 Act's proponents, Harold Macmillan, on Margaret Thatcher's advice, in the 1980s.

Friend the President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons—gave an absolute and clear commitment to a second stage [of Lords Reform], presaged by the Royal Commission[2]