Lord Speaker the bar, and finish by walking up the Temporal (opposition) side toward the Woolsack. The Mace is placed on the Woolsack, where the Lord Speaker sits after a bishop has led the House in prayers. When the Sovereign appoints Lords Commissioners to perform certain actions on his or her behalf (for example, to open or prorogue Parliament, or formally declare Royal Assent), the Lord Speaker is one of them. The other Lords Commissioners, by convention, are the Leader of the House (who has acted as the principal Commissioner since the Lord Chancellor's functions were transferred to the Lord Speaker), the
House of Lords members of the Judiciary. The House of Lords Act 1999 allocated 75 of the 92 hereditary peers to the parties based on the proportion of hereditary peers that belonged to that party in 1999: Of the initial 42 hereditary peers elected as Conservatives, one, David Verney, 21st Lord Willoughby de Broke, now sits as a member of UKIP. Fifteen hereditary peers are elected by the whole House, and the remaining hereditary peers are the two royal office-holders, the Earl Marshal and the Lord Great Chamberlain, both of whom are currently on leave of absence. A report in 2007 stated that