Life Peerages Act 1958 Life Peerages Act 1958 The Life Peerages Act 1958 established the modern standards for the creation of life peers by the monarch of the United Kingdom. This Act was made during the Conservative governments of 1957–1964, when Harold Macmillan was Prime Minister. Elizabeth II had ascended to the throne just over five years before the Act. The Conservatives tried to introduce life peerages to modernise the House of Lords, give it more legitimacy, and respond to a decline in its numbers and attendance. The Labour Party opposed the Life Peerages Bill on Second Reading: Hugh Gaitskell made an impassioned speech
Life Peerages Act 1958 against the proposals, arguing for a far more fundamental reform such as total dismantling of the Lords or a wholly elected house. Prior to the Life Peerages Act 1958, membership in the House of Lords was strictly male and overwhelmingly based on possession of an hereditary title. There existed a few exceptions to the hereditary principle, such as for the Lords Spiritual. The Act made it possible for life peers of both sexes to be members of the Lords. Life peers are either barons (a title in existence since the Middle Ages but in practice little used by the upper