Life Peerages Act 1958 figures, for example the former Secretary of State for India and earlier for Air, Viscount Stansgate. The last Prime Minister and the last non-royal to be created an Earl was paradoxically one of the 1958 Act's proponents, Harold Macmillan, on Margaret Thatcher's advice, in the 1980s. Since her time, only members of the Royal Family have been granted new hereditary peerages. In 1999, during the debate which secured the removal of the constitutional functions of most hereditary peers, the Minister for Constitutional Affairs, Geoff Hoon stated: After this agreed with a question from fellow Labour MP, Mark Fisher which stated:
Prime Minister's Resignation Honours Prime Minister's Resignation Honours The Prime Minister's Resignation Honours in the United Kingdom are honours granted at the behest of an outgoing Prime Minister following his or her resignation. In such a list, a prime minister may ask the monarch to bestow peerages, or lesser honours, on any number of people of his or her choosing. For example, in the 1997 Prime Minister's Resignation Honours, an additional 47 working peers were created at the behest of the three main parties. Since May 2007, the House of Lords Appointments Commission has had to approve proposed peerages, while oversight by the Honours