Читать книгу These are the British онлайн

65 страница из 108

This occurred when the Lords rejected the bill to nationalize the steel industry and the bill to abolish capital punishment. These delaying actions demonstrated that, although the powers of the House of Lords have been drastically curtailed, they can still have considerable political importance. Inevitably, such action evokes dark mutterings from the Labor Party about the ability of hereditary peers to flout the will of the people. The Lords retort that the bill in question is not the will of the people at all, but the will of some of the people's representatives.

Theoretically, the House of Lords is a good deal larger than the House of Commons, consisting of 878 peers. Only about one tenth of them, however, take an active part in the work of the House of Lords. The peers include princes of the royal blood, who by custom take no part in proceedings; 26 spiritual peers, the archbishops and senior bishops of the Church of England; all hereditary peers of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom; 16 hereditary peers of Scotland elected from their own number for each Parliament; 5 representative peers of Ireland elected for life; and the Lords of Appeal in Ordinary appointed to perform the judicial duties of the House and holding their seats for life.