The Cross-bencher reference article from the English Wikipedia on 24-Apr-2004 (provided by Fixed Reference: snapshots of Wikipedia from wikipedia.org)

Cross-bencher

A cross-bencher is a member of the British House of Lords who is not aligned to any particular party. These include the Law Lords and former Speakers of the House of Commons, such as Betty Boothroyd, who by convention are not aligned with either party.

There are currently 179 cross-benchers. They do not take a collective position on issues, although they do have a Convenor for administrative purposes, who by convention in the past has been the most recent Speaker of the House of Commons to have joined the House of Lords. In a break with this tradition, the current Convenor is Lord Craig of Radley. The Convenor keeps them up-to-date with the business of the House. Although the Lords Spiritual (Archbishops and Bishops of the Church of England) also have no party affiliation, they do not sit on the cross-benches.

The cross-benchers are often viewed as bringing specialist knowledge to the House, since they have usually been craeted peers for reasons other than party-political affiliation. Most of them (146) are Life Peers.

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