Procedure: A Case Study of the House of Lords

This study first describes briefly the procedure of the Lords in the reign of James I, as 1621 saw the writing down of the then procedures in the first edition of Public Business Standing Orders or 'Remembrances'. Then jumping briskly forward three and a half centuries to the period 1960-99, current Lords procedures are described in the later twentieth century before the passage of the House of Lords Act 1999 and the exclusion of the majority of hereditary peers. Finally, we examine the procedural problems which the half reformed 'interim House' of Lords faces on several fronts.