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-designate 1996 and 2001 (when direct prime-ministerial elections were held) the role and duration of the Prime Minister-elect was prescribed by legislation: within 45 days of the publication of the election results (which were published eight days after elections) the Prime Minister-elect would have appeared before the Knesset, presented the Ministers of the Government, announced the division of tasks and the guiding principles of the government's policies, and, after receiving a vote of confidence, enter into office. In 2001, the Knesset voted to change the system of direct prime-ministerial elections and restore the one-vote parliamentary system of government that operated until