Note (Back) — Chapter V

103. Representative Peers of Scotland and of Ireland.—A third group of members comprises the representative peers of Scotland. Under provision of the Act of Union of 1707, when a new parliament is summoned the whole body of Scottish peers elects sixteen of their number to sit as their representatives at Westminster. By custom the election takes place at Holyrood Palace in the city of Edinburgh.[141] The act of 1707 made no provision for the creation of Scottish peers, with the consequence that, through the extinction of noble families and the occasional conferring of a peerage of the United Kingdom upon a Scottish peer, the total number of Scottish peerages has been reduced from 165 to 33.[142] The tenure of a Scottish representative peer at Westminster expires with the termination of a parliament. A fourth group of members is the Irish. By the Act of Union of 1800 it was provided that not all of the peers of Ireland should be accorded seats in the House of Lords, but only twenty-eight of them, to be elected for life by the whole number of Irish peers. The number of Irish peerages was put in the course of gradual reduction and it is now under the prescribed maximum of one hundred.[143] Unlike the English and Scottish peers, Irish peers, if not elected to the House of Lords, may stand for election to the House of Commons, though they may not represent Irish constituencies.[144] While members of the Commons, however, they may not be elected to the Lords, nor may they participate in the choice of representative peers.