Editing Representative peer (section)

{{short description|Peers elected by members of the Peerages of Scotland and Ireland to the British House of Lords}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2013}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2023}}
{{Peerage|Types}}

In the [[United Kingdom]], '''representative peers''' were those [[Peerage|peers]] elected by the members of the [[Peerage of Scotland]] and the [[Peerage of Ireland]] to sit in the British [[House of Lords]]. 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. All peers who were created after 1707 as [[Peerage of Great Britain|Peers of Great Britain]] and after 1801 as [[Peerage of the United Kingdom|Peers of the United Kingdom]] held the same right to sit in the House of Lords.

Representative peers were introduced in 1707, when the [[Kingdom of England]] and the [[Kingdom of Scotland]] were united into the [[Kingdom of Great Britain]]. At the time there were 168 English and 154 Scottish peers.<ref name=nicholls>{{cite web |author=Lord Nicholls of Birkenhead |url=https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld199899/ldselect/ldprivi/108i/10806.htm |title=Opinions of the Committee |work=Select Committee on Privileges Second Report |access-date=7 April 2007}}</ref> The English peers feared that the House of Lords would be swamped by the Scottish element, and consequently the election of a small number of representative peers to represent Scotland was negotiated.<ref name=nicholls/> A similar arrangement was adopted when the Kingdom of Great Britain and the [[Kingdom of Ireland]] merged into the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland]] in January 1801.

Scotland was allowed to elect sixteen representative peers, while Ireland could elect twenty-eight.<ref name="May p228">{{cite book |last=May |first=Erskine |author-link=Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough |title=The Constitutional History of England since the Accession of George III 1760–1860 |publisher=Crosby & Nichols |year=1862 |location=Boston |page=[https://archive.org/details/constitutionalh33maygoog/page/n229 228] |url=https://archive.org/details/constitutionalh33maygoog}}</ref> Those chosen by Scotland sat for the life of one Parliament, and following each dissolution new Scottish peers were elected. In contrast, Irish representative peers sat for life. Elections for Irish peers ceased when the [[Irish Free State]] came into existence as a [[dominion]] in December 1922. However, already-elected Irish peers continued to be entitled to sit until their death. Elections for Scottish peers ended in 1963, when all Scottish peers obtained the right to sit in the House of Lords.

Under the [[House of Lords Act 1999]], a new form of representative peer was introduced to allow some hereditary peers to stay in the House of Lords.<ref name="types of member"/>