Representative peer

Until 1999, all members of the Peerage of England held the right to sit in the House of Lords; they did not elect a limited group of representatives.

The elections were held in the Great Gallery, a large room decorated by eighty-nine of Jacob de Wet's portraits of Scottish monarchs, from Fergus Mór to Charles II.

[clarification needed] The Roll was then re–read, with each peer responding by publicly announcing his votes and the return being sent to the clerk of the crown at London.

[8] The position and rights of Scottish peers in relation to the House of Lords remained unclear during most of the eighteenth century.

It was implied, furthermore, that the Peerage Act 1963 did not violate the requirement of Scottish representation, set out in the Article XXII of the Treaty of Union, by allowing all Scottish peers to sit in the House of Lords: as long as a minimum of sixteen seats were reserved for Scotland, the principles of the Article would be upheld.

[12][13] It was further argued that the only way to rescind the requirement of Article XXII would be to dissolve the Union between England and Scotland,[13] which the House of Lords Bill did not seek to do.

[17] Further, the Government pointed out that, even if the election of Scottish peers were entrenched, Parliament could amend the provision under the doctrine of Parliamentary sovereignty.

The Privileges Committee unanimously found that the Articles of Union would not be breached by the House of Lords Bill if it were enacted.

[24] The Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in Ireland was responsible for electoral arrangements; each peer voted by an open and public ballot.

The Lord Chancellor of Great Britain—the presiding officer of the House of Lords—certified the vacancy,[26] while the Lord Chancellor of Ireland directed the Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper to issue ballots to Irish peers, receive the completed ballots, determine the victor, and announce the result, which was then published in both The Dublin Gazette and The London Gazette.

[24] An exception was Lord Curzon, who won election as a representative peer in 1908, despite never having claimed the right to be an elector;[29] he had been refused a peerage of the United Kingdom by the Liberal government of the day.

In the united Parliament, there were at first four Irish prelates at any one time, one archbishop and three diocesan bishops, who sat for a session before ceding their seats to colleagues on a fixed rotation of dioceses.

[30][4][31] The rotation passed over any bishop already serving as an elected representative peer, as when Charles Agar sat as Viscount Somerton rather than as Archbishop of Dublin.

The main Irish Free State Constitution Act 1922 was silent on the matter, to some seeming to mean that the right had not been abolished, but the ancillary Irish Free State (Consequential Provisions) Act 1922 had abolished the office of Lord Chancellor of Ireland,[34] whose involvement was required in the election process.

The Irish Free State abolished the office of Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper in 1926, the last holder becoming Master of the High Court.

Lord Reid wrote, "A statutory provision is impliedly repealed if a later enactment brings to an end a state of things the continuance of which is essential for its operation.

[36] He argued instead that since the posts of Lord Chancellor of Ireland and Clerk of the Crown and Hanaper had been abolished, there was no mechanism by which Irish peers could be elected.

[40] Lord Curzon, for example, specifically requested an Irish peerage when made Viceroy of India, so that he would not be debarred from sitting in the House of Commons on his return.

[41] The Peerage Act 1963 allowed all Scottish peers to sit in the House of Lords;[42] it also permitted all Irish peers to sit in the House of Commons for any constituency in the United Kingdom, as well as to vote in parliamentary elections, without being deprived of the remaining privileges of peerage.

[3] In addition, there are two royal appointments: the Lord Great Chamberlain,[3] currently Lord Carrington, is appointed as the King's representative in Parliament, while the post of Earl Marshal[3] remains purely hereditary; the office has been held since 1672 by the Dukes of Norfolk and is responsible for ceremonies such as the State Opening of Parliament.