This article was brought to you by The Ferret.
AS in The Ferret’s previous analysis two years ago, we limited our definition of peers living in Scotland to those peers that gave a Scottish address in their expense claims – or those we could otherwise identify as living in Scotland, from verifiable public sources.
Where it was not possible to identify a Scottish location with a peer, or where the peer gave an address outwith Scotland, they were excluded. This means it is possible that there are more peers living in Scotland, and that costs could be higher than those identified in this analysis.
READ MORE: Revealed: House of Lords peers claim more than £2.1m over a year
Peers that were wholly inactive over the 12-month period were also excluded from the analysis. This year we found that there were 54 identifiable Scottish peers.
Two years ago, we found there were 64.
Eighteen peers living in Scotland are affiliated to Labour. The Scottish Labour Party website suggests that it has 24 members in the House of Lords, but we found that some Scottish Labour peers gave no address or provided an address outwith Scotland, so these peers were excluded from this analysis.
There are 15 Conservative peers, 10 Liberal Democrat peers, 10 cross-bench peers with no political party affiliation and one peer living in Scotland, Lord Pearson of Rannoch, who is a former leader of Ukip.
There are no SNP peers because of a long-standing party policy of opposing the House of Lords as “an affront to democracy”.
The peers living in Scotland can also be split by type.
There are 43 life peers. They are appointed following a recommendation from the Prime Minster of the day. They must also be vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission.
Once appointed they are entitled to attend the House of Lords until they die.
There are 11 hereditary peers resident in Scotland.
The overall number of hereditary peers in the House of Lords is limited to 92. When one dies or retires, new hereditary peers are elected using the Alternative Vote system, a form of proportional representation.
However, only those on the Register of Hereditary Peers are eligible to stand for election.
Once elected, hereditary peers are able to attend the House of Lords until they die.
The Ferret is an editorially independent, not-for-profit co-operative run by its journalists and subscribers. You can find it at https://theferret.scot/ and can subscribe for £3 a month here: https://theferret.scot/subscribe/
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