Our Upper House is very different to most countries but I will try my best to explain it.

To start ours is called the House of Lords or also known as the upper chamber of Parliament. The HoL consists of Hereditary Peers (Those who inherited their position of which 92 remain), Spiritual Peers (These are religious as we are a christian country and have no separation of Church and State) and Lifelong Peers (those who were chosen as being a peer is a job for life).

The House of Lords is appointed rather than elected. This is done by the Prime Minister and a commission which makes recommendations to the Queen, who grants peerages. Nominations of peers are made to all parties and not just the current leading one. The Lords consists of people who are experts in their specific fields, since certain criteria must be met in order to meet commission standards. T

The functions of The Lords is scrutiny of the government which occurs through select committees and floor readings of bills. On many occasions The Lords act as a block on the Commons who may attempt to push through a bill which is too far reaching (this is currently happening with a data surveillance bill. The Lords will tell the commons why it was block so they can re-thinks about the bill in areas which may be weak or troublesome.

Although this allows holds The Commons accountable they can get past this with the Parliament Act 1949 which allows them to pass a bill without the consent of the Lords if over a year has passed and the Lords have refused to pass a bill. Although this is used rarely.

There is a lot of talks about reforming our Upper Chamber as it is seen as undemocratic but there are various arguments about it as the peers who sit in the House of Lords are extremely knowledgeable and as they don't need to worry about getting elected they can focus on holding the government to account as opposed to their popularity.