Hi Annie
The makeup of the House of Lords is going through a period of change. Last year, most
hereditary peers lost their right to seats, and the Government is considering the way
forward for the future. To date, I do not think any change has been made to the position
of Bishops and Archbishops - though this could happen at a later stage.
Subject to that, the following automatically have seats in the House of Lords by right of
their office:
Archbishop of Canterbury
Archbishop of York
Bishop of London
Bishop of Durham
Bishop of Winchester.
In addition, there are seats for a further 23 DIOCESAN bishops, who take them by
seniority. New bishops join the queue and wait for vacancies to arise. There are no
seats for suffragan Bishops. These seats are not held for life but merely for as long as
the person remains a dicesan Bishop. In practice, though, retiring Archbishops of
Canterbury and York are always given Life Peerages. Until 1920, Welsh bishops ranked
equally with their English brethren in entitlement to one of the 23 seats. There was then
no separate Archbishop of Wales.
Incidentally, while it may just have been a slip of the keyboard, it is "Church OF
England" but "Church IN Wales" - another consequence of dis-establishment.
Regards
David
In Yr Enfys, there was a short paragraph on the new Archbishop of
Wales. It
mentioned the gentleman's name and where he came from. The last sentence in
the paragraph says as follows:
Welsh Archbishops do not sit in the House of Lords because the Church of
Wales is disestablished.
Do English Archbishops sit in the House of Lords?
Annie
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