The warped nature of the House of Lords has once again been revealed, after the ERS found that nearly a quarter of peers are based in London…compared to just 13% of the UK public.
Over half – 55% of peers – live in the capital, or the East and South East of England, while peers in the East and West Midlands make up just 6% between them
The findings come as 36 news peers are being crammed into the second chamber. Peers in London, South East and East of England are over-represented by almost 20 percentage points more than the population share for these regions (36%).
The North West and East and West Midlands are the most underrepresented regions in the House of Lords when compared with their population share.
The unelected House of Lords is looking increasingly like a Westminster private member’s club, with voices outside of London and the South East locked out. This totally undermines the government’s stated intention to ‘level up’ the regions, when we have a chamber that is skewed towards one patch of England.
Of course, it’s no surprise that the chamber is unrepresentative when the chamber is totally unelected: this is a home for Prime Ministers’ pals, SpAds and donors. This is a major inequity in the heart of our politics, and means the expertise and skills of huge parts of the UK go ignored. It’s time for a fairly-elected revising chamber that can stand up for the nations and regions of the UK.
It’s no good simply packing the chamber with more unelected appointees. At 800 members this bloated house needs root-and-branch reform to put the public first at last.
Democracy campaigners – and even the Lord Speaker – believe the new appointments will make a mockery of supposed efforts in the chamber to keep numbers down. The total number of peers has now tipped over a whopping 800.
House of Lords members by region
| Location |
Number of peers residing in each area |
Proportion of peers residing in an area (as % of all peers for which place of residence is available) |
Percentage of the UK adult population residing in an area |
Difference between peers and UK population in each area |
| London |
118 |
23.7% |
13.1% |
10.6% |
| South East |
100 |
20.1% |
13.7% |
6.4% |
| East of England |
58 |
11.6% |
9.3% |
2.3% |
| South West |
45 |
9.0% |
8.6% |
0.4% |
| Scotland |
43 |
8.6% |
8.4% |
0.2% |
| Yorkshire & Humber |
31 |
6.2% |
8.2% |
-2.0% |
| North West |
22 |
4.4% |
11.0% |
-6.6% |
| Wales |
19 |
3.8% |
4.8% |
-1.0% |
| North East |
16 |
3.2% |
4.1% |
-0.9% |
| West Midlands |
16 |
3.2% |
8.8% |
-5.6% |
| East Midlands |
15 |
3.0% |
7.3% |
-4.3% |
| Northern Ireland |
11 |
2.2% |
2.8% |
-0.6% |
| Overseas |
4 |
0.8% |
N/A |
N/A |
Based on the latest expense forms, which covers the period 1-29 February, we have data on place of residence for 498 peers. (Population data is based on the latest ONS estimate of January 2019)
The eight peers for which we have location data, but who are currently on leave of absence and thus ineligible to sit in the Lords, all have London as their place of residence.
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