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:
Life peer Life Peerages Act has the right to sit in the House of Lords, provided he or she is at least 21 years of age, is not suffering punishment upon conviction for treason and is a citizen of the United Kingdom, or the Republic of Ireland or of a member of the Commonwealth of Nations, and is resident in the UK for tax purposes. Life baronies under the Life Peerages Act are created by the Sovereign but, in practice, none are granted except upon the proposition of the Prime Minister. Life peers created under the Life Peerages Act do not, unless