Senior Tory peers propose actions to curb Lords' powers

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/oct/28/senior-tory-peers-propose-actions-curb-lords-powers

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The government could extend the Parliament Act or let MPs have the final say on blocked legislation after the House of Lords delayed George Osborne’s tax credit cuts, senior Conservative peers have suggested.

Michael Howard, a former party leader, and William Hague, the former foreign secretary, both floated ways of asserting the primacy of the House of Commons after the government launched a review of the relationship between the chambers.

At the moment, the government can override primary legislation blocked by the Lords using the Parliament Act, but this does not apply to secondary legislation – the type used for the tax credit cuts – which can be killed off with a fatal motion.

Related: Government sets up constitutional review after Lords tax credits defeat

The terms of the review, to be led by Lord Strathclyde, an elected hereditary peer and former cabinet minister, are vague, saying only that it would look at how to secure the decisive role of the elected House of Commons in relation to its primacy on financial matters and secondary legislation.

Speaking to the BBC, Lord Howard said it should be possible to implement limited changes on a cross-party basis that make the rules clearer about how the House of Lords can intervene in legislation.

One option is to allow peers to vote down statutory instruments – the vehicle for the tax credit cuts – but for the secondary legislation to then go back to the Commons and not return to the Lords, he said.

He told Radio 4’s Today programme: “The basic principle is this: the House of Commons is elected, the House of Lords is not. The House of Commons is accountable, the House of Lords is not. So, the House of Commons has to have its primacy recognised, it has to be able to have its way, and I very much welcome the decision the prime minister has made to ask Lord Strathclyde to review this situation.”

Related: The Guardian view on the tax credits defeat: good use of peer pressure | Editorial

Separately, Lord Hague, who is still close to the Tory leadership, wrote in the Telegraph suggesting the 1911 Parliament Act could be extended to prevent peers voting down financial matters put in secondary legislation.

He also suggested they could legislate to make sure the “supremacy of the Commons on matters of finance is an overriding principle of law”.

Lady Hayman, a former Lords speaker, pointed out that the House of Lords had only forced a delay in the tax credit cuts, rather than using a fatal motion.

She said reforms to clarify the situation could be agreed, but the review should not be used to punish the Lords.

The actual motion, tabled by Labour’s former social security minister Lady Hollis, forced a delay to the tax credit cuts by calling on the government to outline a package of compensation for low-paid workers.

Along with another motion by the crossbencher Lady Meacher, Downing Street said these broke the constitutional convention that the upper house does not block or delay financial measures.

The government has been so angered by the Lords that it could railroad through the tax credit cuts with a new statutory instrument, or by attaching the changes to a separate parliamentary bill, or by introducing an emergency standalone bill.

These would be done in such a way that the Speaker, John Bercow, would be obliged to designate them as financial measures, forcing peers to accept the cuts.