I know the lower house is selected through general elections, but what about the upper house?
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The House of Lords is made up of “peers” and these are now mostly people who have been chosen to become a peer. There is a selection committee to which anyone can be nominated, they then pass on reccommendations to the Prime Minister who chooses if they should become peers or not, and this is rubberstamped by the monarch. The PM also gets to have a list of “resignation honours” where they hand pick some people to become peers.
These are known as “life peers” because they are appointed for life.
[https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/whos-in-the-house-of-lords/members-and-their-roles/how-members-are-appointed/](https://www.parliament.uk/business/lords/whos-in-the-house-of-lords/members-and-their-roles/how-members-are-appointed/)
There are also “spritual peers” who are appointed by the Church of England, they have 25 peerages and when one bishop dies, the church appoints another.
Finally there are “hereditary peers” who are descendents of the original fuedal lords that made up the House of Lords when it came into existence. There are 667 hereditary peerages, and they all used to sit in the House of Lords until the late 90s, when they were reduced to 95 seats, chosen from the 667 by election. There are now moves by the new Labour government to remove those as well.
[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/20/hereditary-peers-house-of-lords-end](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jul/20/hereditary-peers-house-of-lords-end)
For reference, there are 790 sitting peers in total: [https://members.parliament.uk/parties/lords/by-peerage](https://members.parliament.uk/parties/lords/by-peerage)
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