The House of Lords Act 1999 ended the automatic right of hereditary peers to sit in the United Kingdom’s upper chamber of Parliament. It removed all but 92 of the 758 hereditary peers who had held seats, let those excluded peers vote in general elections and stand for the House of Commons, and shifted the balance of the chamber toward life peers appointed for expertise or public service. A later statute, the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026, has since removed the remaining 92 as well.
What Section 1 Removed
Section 1 of the Act is a single sentence: no one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.1Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 That line ended a tradition stretching back to the medieval era. Holding a title like Duke, Earl, or Baron no longer meant an automatic seat in Parliament, an automatic voice in lawmaking, or an automatic writ of summons from the Crown.2Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Explanatory Notes
The scale was enormous. At the time, 758 hereditary peers were members of the House, outnumbering the 542 life peers and 26 bishops who also sat there.3Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Explanatory Notes In one step, the Act excluded more than 660 of them. It did not abolish anyone’s peerage. You could still be a Duke. But the title no longer came with a legislative role, and power in the chamber shifted decisively toward life peers.
The Act received Royal Assent on 11 November 1999, the same day Parliament was prorogued.2Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Explanatory Notes It passed the Commons comfortably but met stiffer resistance in the Lords, where many hereditary peers objected to voting themselves out of existence. What made the bill passable was a compromise that let a small group stay.
The Ninety-Two Who Stayed
Section 2 carved out an exception known as the Weatherill Amendment, named after Lord Weatherill, the crossbench convenor and former Commons Speaker who proposed it.4UK Parliament. The Weatherill Amendment Under it, 92 hereditary peers were allowed to remain on what the government described as a strictly transitional basis.5Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Section 2
The 92 seats broke down into three groups. The largest block of 75 peers was elected by hereditary peers within each political party or the crossbench grouping, allocated proportionally to reflect the existing party balance: 42 Conservatives, 28 crossbenchers, 3 Liberal Democrats, and 2 Labour peers.4UK Parliament. The Weatherill Amendment
A second group of 15 was elected by the whole House to serve as deputy speakers and committee chairs, chosen for procedural experience rather than party loyalty. The final two seats were reserved for the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, who hold ceremonial offices connected to the Crown.4UK Parliament. The Weatherill Amendment The statute caps the elected excepted peers at 90, with the two office-holders sitting outside that limit.5Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Section 2
How Vacancies Were Filled
To keep the excepted contingent steady at 92, the House operated a by-election system under its Standing Orders.6UK Parliament. By-elections in the House of Lords When an excepted peer died, resigned, or was expelled, a replacement had to be chosen, and the mechanics depended on which category the departing peer belonged to.
For vacancies among the 75 party-allocated seats, only the excepted hereditary peers in the same party or crossbench group could vote. For vacancies among the 15 deputy speaker seats, the whole House voted.7Parliament.uk. Standing Orders of the House of Lords Relating to Public Business By-elections had to take place within three months of a vacancy, and candidates were drawn from a Register of hereditary peers who had been excluded by the 1999 Act and had expressed willingness to stand.6UK Parliament. By-elections in the House of Lords
Some contests had electorates of fewer than a dozen people, and a peer could be elected to Parliament by two or three votes. Over the 25 years the system operated, dozens of by-elections took place.
Voting Rights for the Excluded Peers
Before 1999, hereditary peers faced a peculiar restriction. Because they were members of the Lords, they were barred from voting in Commons elections or standing as Commons candidates. Stripping them of their Lords seats therefore raised a further question: could they participate in democratic life at all?
Section 3 resolved this. It removed the disqualification, giving every excluded hereditary peer the right to vote in general elections and to stand for election to the House of Commons.8Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Section 3 A Duke or Viscount who lost a Lords seat could now register to vote locally and even run for the Commons, like any other citizen.
The 92 who remained under the Weatherill Amendment stayed disqualified from Commons elections. As long as they sat in the upper chamber, they could neither vote for nor serve in the lower one.9Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 Explanatory Notes They also could not use the Peerage Act 1963 to disclaim their peerage as a workaround; the 1999 Act blocked that route for excepted peers specifically.
The Treaty of Union Challenge
The bill did not pass without a legal challenge. In October 1999, the Committee for Privileges considered whether the legislation breached the Treaty of Union between England and Scotland, the 1707 agreement that created the Parliament of Great Britain and guaranteed certain rights to Scottish peers. The Committee heard arguments over four days and concluded unanimously that the bill would not breach the Treaty.10Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords Act 1999 – Explanatory Notes That ruling cleared the final constitutional hurdle before Royal Assent.
What Replaced the 1999 Settlement
The Weatherill Amendment was always described as transitional, and for more than two decades the promised second stage failed to materialise. The next step arrived with the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026, which received Royal Assent on 18 March 2026.11Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 The new Act omits Section 2 of the 1999 Act entirely, removing the legal basis for the excepted hereditary peers to remain. It also abolishes the House of Lords’ jurisdiction over claims to hereditary peerages, including peerages in abeyance.
The 2026 Act’s main provisions come into force at the end of the parliamentary session in which it was passed, so the remaining hereditary peers lose their seats when that session concludes. Any writ of summons issued for the current Parliament in right of a hereditary peerage becomes void after that point.11Legislation.gov.uk. House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Act 2026 By-elections were suspended while the bill was before Parliament, and the number of excepted peers had already dropped to 85 by the time it passed. Once the 2026 Act takes full effect, no one will sit in the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.