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| Vandalise tax credit reform at your peril, my Lords | Vandalise tax credit reform at your peril, my Lords |
| (about 1 hour later) | |
| In recent months, the House of Lords has had a collective rush of blood to the head. To call its present turbulence over Conservative plans to cut tax credits a “constitutional crisis” is premature. But today’s feisty shin-kicking in the Lords could be tomorrow’s legislative wreck. | In recent months, the House of Lords has had a collective rush of blood to the head. To call its present turbulence over Conservative plans to cut tax credits a “constitutional crisis” is premature. But today’s feisty shin-kicking in the Lords could be tomorrow’s legislative wreck. |
| Not that the Tories are the only party to have been embarrassed by antics in the second chamber. In July, Lord Sewel, the chairman of committees (a senior post which required him to relinquish the Labour whip) resigned his membership of the upper house after lurid revelations about his private life. | Not that the Tories are the only party to have been embarrassed by antics in the second chamber. In July, Lord Sewel, the chairman of committees (a senior post which required him to relinquish the Labour whip) resigned his membership of the upper house after lurid revelations about his private life. |
| Related: David Cameron is half right about reforming the House of Lords | Billy Bragg | Related: David Cameron is half right about reforming the House of Lords | Billy Bragg |
| More recently, the Labour peers Lord Grabiner and Lord Warner have renounced the party whip in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, while Lord Adonis has done the same so that he is free to chair George Osborne’s National Infrastructure Commission. None of this represents a serious threat to Corbyn (yet). But it does show that the Lords’ talent for indiscipline is indiscriminate and non-partisan. | More recently, the Labour peers Lord Grabiner and Lord Warner have renounced the party whip in protest at Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, while Lord Adonis has done the same so that he is free to chair George Osborne’s National Infrastructure Commission. None of this represents a serious threat to Corbyn (yet). But it does show that the Lords’ talent for indiscipline is indiscriminate and non-partisan. |
| David Cameron’s government tomorrow faces its most serious confrontation with the upper house since the Lords nearly sabotaged Andrew Lansley’s NHS plan in 2012. Labour and Lib Dem peers are licking their lips at the prospect. Since tax credit reform is not explicitly mentioned in the Tory manifesto, they do not believe that the so-called Salisbury convention (under which the Lords will not vote down a measure enacting an election pledge on which a government was elected) applies. Having consulted the parliamentary authorities, they are no less confident that the new tax credit rules cannot be classified as a money bill and do not, therefore, enjoy the immunity from Lords veto enshrined in the 1911 Parliament Act. | David Cameron’s government tomorrow faces its most serious confrontation with the upper house since the Lords nearly sabotaged Andrew Lansley’s NHS plan in 2012. Labour and Lib Dem peers are licking their lips at the prospect. Since tax credit reform is not explicitly mentioned in the Tory manifesto, they do not believe that the so-called Salisbury convention (under which the Lords will not vote down a measure enacting an election pledge on which a government was elected) applies. Having consulted the parliamentary authorities, they are no less confident that the new tax credit rules cannot be classified as a money bill and do not, therefore, enjoy the immunity from Lords veto enshrined in the 1911 Parliament Act. |
| Four amendments have been tabled to the new regulations in the Lords, only one of which is acceptable to ministers. This is the amendment by the bishop of Portsmouth, Rt Rev Christopher Foster, which in effect does no more than express regret at the social cost of the cuts. The other three proposals, however, pose a basic challenge to the primacy of the Commons: Zahida Manzoor’s Lib Dem amendment would kill the statutory instrument stone dead, while those laid down by the cross-bencher Molly Meacher and Labour’s Patricia Hollis would banish George Osborne’s cuts to legislative limbo until these objections had been addressed. Senior Tory peers are far from sure that they have the numbers to protect the regulations. It is quite conceivable that the Lords will wreck this most controversial reform tomorrow, leaving Osborne with a tattered piece of paper in his hands. | Four amendments have been tabled to the new regulations in the Lords, only one of which is acceptable to ministers. This is the amendment by the bishop of Portsmouth, Rt Rev Christopher Foster, which in effect does no more than express regret at the social cost of the cuts. The other three proposals, however, pose a basic challenge to the primacy of the Commons: Zahida Manzoor’s Lib Dem amendment would kill the statutory instrument stone dead, while those laid down by the cross-bencher Molly Meacher and Labour’s Patricia Hollis would banish George Osborne’s cuts to legislative limbo until these objections had been addressed. Senior Tory peers are far from sure that they have the numbers to protect the regulations. It is quite conceivable that the Lords will wreck this most controversial reform tomorrow, leaving Osborne with a tattered piece of paper in his hands. |
| Related: One hundred years of Tory attacks on the poor | Letters | |
| And quite right too, you may say. I don’t expect you to agree with me that reform of tax credits is long overdue. A system that started out costing £1bn a year now sets the taxpayer back just shy of £30bn. That’s patently absurd. The government should not have insinuated, immediately after the budget, that those losing out would be fully compensated by the national living wage. That was never sound arithmetic or sound one-nation politics – a mistake that effectively committed Osborne to finding other forms of compensation and transitional help sooner or later. | And quite right too, you may say. I don’t expect you to agree with me that reform of tax credits is long overdue. A system that started out costing £1bn a year now sets the taxpayer back just shy of £30bn. That’s patently absurd. The government should not have insinuated, immediately after the budget, that those losing out would be fully compensated by the national living wage. That was never sound arithmetic or sound one-nation politics – a mistake that effectively committed Osborne to finding other forms of compensation and transitional help sooner or later. |
| It is routinely claimed now that the chancellor faces a make-or-break decision and must choose between Thatcheresque defiance (“You turn if you want to”) and a humiliating climb-down of the sort described by Vince Cable in 2010 (“The road to Westminster is covered with the skid marks of political parties changing direction”). | It is routinely claimed now that the chancellor faces a make-or-break decision and must choose between Thatcheresque defiance (“You turn if you want to”) and a humiliating climb-down of the sort described by Vince Cable in 2010 (“The road to Westminster is covered with the skid marks of political parties changing direction”). |
| In fact, I have good reason to believe that Osborne will deal with the choice by doing both: persisting with his stubborn rhetorical position that the cuts are non-negotiable, while mitigating their most grievous impact as if that had always been part of the plan. Consider the wording deployed by Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, on today’s Andrew Marr Show. As a former Treasury minister, she could assert with confidence that her erstwhile boss was “in listening mode”, but would not ditch “the main policy – the prime minister has been very clear that the policy is not going to change”. | In fact, I have good reason to believe that Osborne will deal with the choice by doing both: persisting with his stubborn rhetorical position that the cuts are non-negotiable, while mitigating their most grievous impact as if that had always been part of the plan. Consider the wording deployed by Nicky Morgan, the education secretary, on today’s Andrew Marr Show. As a former Treasury minister, she could assert with confidence that her erstwhile boss was “in listening mode”, but would not ditch “the main policy – the prime minister has been very clear that the policy is not going to change”. |
| I do not believe that Cameron would really flood the upper house with Tory peers – as his allies have hinted he might | I do not believe that Cameron would really flood the upper house with Tory peers – as his allies have hinted he might |
| From this we can deduce that Cameron and Osborne will not shift an inch on the principle of the reform – but are receptive to measures that will reduce its worst abrasions and most hideous marginal rates. | From this we can deduce that Cameron and Osborne will not shift an inch on the principle of the reform – but are receptive to measures that will reduce its worst abrasions and most hideous marginal rates. |
| This, then, is the direction of travel. But if the upper house kills off the statutory instrument, or freezes it with a legislative Taser, the nature of the argument will change immediately, and not for the better. | This, then, is the direction of travel. But if the upper house kills off the statutory instrument, or freezes it with a legislative Taser, the nature of the argument will change immediately, and not for the better. |
| It is not hard to understand the temptation to wreck. “For years we had to put up with the in-built Tory majority in the Lords,” says one Labour peer. “This gives them a taste of their own medicine.” There are 249 Conservative peers, compared to 212 on the Labour benches and 111 Liberal Democrats (more than 13 times as many representatives of the party as survive in the Commons). At present, 176 members of the upper house sit on the cross benches, adding to the uncertainty. It is scarcely surprising, given their respective post-election positions in the lower house, that Labour and the Lib Dems find this uncertainty tantalising; a glittering opportunity to hit the government where it hurts. | It is not hard to understand the temptation to wreck. “For years we had to put up with the in-built Tory majority in the Lords,” says one Labour peer. “This gives them a taste of their own medicine.” There are 249 Conservative peers, compared to 212 on the Labour benches and 111 Liberal Democrats (more than 13 times as many representatives of the party as survive in the Commons). At present, 176 members of the upper house sit on the cross benches, adding to the uncertainty. It is scarcely surprising, given their respective post-election positions in the lower house, that Labour and the Lib Dems find this uncertainty tantalising; a glittering opportunity to hit the government where it hurts. |
| All the same, they would be wise to resist the temptation to wreck, ruin and vandalise. To give in to such temptation would compel Cameron to fight a battle he does not want but would have to win. The Commons has already approved the tax credit cuts three times. Whatever you think of Osborne’s measure, do you really want it to be overturned (temporarily) by a super-committee of the unelected? | All the same, they would be wise to resist the temptation to wreck, ruin and vandalise. To give in to such temptation would compel Cameron to fight a battle he does not want but would have to win. The Commons has already approved the tax credit cuts three times. Whatever you think of Osborne’s measure, do you really want it to be overturned (temporarily) by a super-committee of the unelected? |
| I do not believe that Cameron would really flood the upper house with Tory peers – as his allies have hinted he might, as a weapon of last resort. But escalation there would certainly be, initially with reference to the parliament acts of 1911 and 1949, and then, God help us, with yet another round of Lords reform: the Narnia of politics, from which well-meaning men and women never return. | I do not believe that Cameron would really flood the upper house with Tory peers – as his allies have hinted he might, as a weapon of last resort. But escalation there would certainly be, initially with reference to the parliament acts of 1911 and 1949, and then, God help us, with yet another round of Lords reform: the Narnia of politics, from which well-meaning men and women never return. |
| The unintended consequence of the Lords challenging the primacy of the Commons in this way might easily be a constitutional upheaval that drained oxygen from political argument, ate up parliamentary time gluttonously, and pushed social justice to the margins of debate. The Conservative manifesto specifically declares that second chamber reform is “not a priority in [this] parliament”. But if the Lords over-reach themselves, it could become a government priority all too quickly. | The unintended consequence of the Lords challenging the primacy of the Commons in this way might easily be a constitutional upheaval that drained oxygen from political argument, ate up parliamentary time gluttonously, and pushed social justice to the margins of debate. The Conservative manifesto specifically declares that second chamber reform is “not a priority in [this] parliament”. But if the Lords over-reach themselves, it could become a government priority all too quickly. |