House of Lords Act 1999 (c. 34)

No-one shall be a member of the House of Lords by virtue of a hereditary peerage.

(1) Section 1 shall not apply in relation to anyone excepted from it by or in accordance with Standing Orders of the House. (2) At any one time 90 people shall be excepted from section 1; but anyone excepted as holder of the office of Earl Marshal, or as performing the office of Lord Great Chamberlain, shall not count towards that limit. (3) Once excepted from section 1, a person shall continue to be so throughout his life (until an Act of Parliament provides to the contrary). (4) Standing Orders shall make provision for filling vacancies among the people excepted from section 1; and in any case where— (a) the vacancy arises on a death occurring after the end of the first Session of the next Parliament after that in which this Act is passed, and (b) the deceased person was excepted in consequence of an election, that provision shall require the holding of a by-election. (5) A person may be excepted from section 1 by or in accordance with Standing Orders made in anticipation of the enactment or commencement of this section. (6) Any question whether a person is excepted from section 1 shall be decided by the Clerk of the Parliaments, whose certificate shall be conclusive.