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Lords debating Strathclyde reform plans Labour: Lords curbs 'stifle debate'
(about 2 hours later)
The House of Lords has developed a "lesser understanding" of the implications of using its powers too aggressively, said Lord Strathclyde. Labour has accused the government of trying to "stifle debate" by removing peers' power to veto some draft laws.
He said the Lords enjoyed "unfettered powers" to veto secondary legislation. Shadow Lords leader Baroness Smith said the move was a "massive over-reaction" to the government's defeat over tax credit changes last year.
Lord Strathclyde led a review launched by David Cameron into the powers of the House of Lords after they blocked plans to cut tax credits. She was speaking as peers debated the proposals put forward by Conservative Lord Strathclyde.
Labour's Baroness Smith said the government "feared opposition" and was trying "to brush this House aside". The Tory peer said Lords were actually being given a new "very practical" power they had never had before.
Lord Strathclyde recommended taking away the absolute veto the House of Lords had over laws called statutory instruments and instead create a new procedure allowing them to send the secondary legislation back to the House of Commons to "think again". He led a review launched by David Cameron into the powers of the House of Lords after they blocked plans to cut tax credits in October, to the anger of Conservative ministers.
The cuts were later shelved in the Autumn Statement.
'Ping pong'
The review recommended taking away the absolute veto the House of Lords had over laws, called statutory instruments, and instead create a new procedure allowing them to send the secondary legislation back to the House of Commons to "think again".
They would only be allowed to do this once, enabling the House of Commons to have the final say and push through its agenda even if the Lords disagrees.They would only be allowed to do this once, enabling the House of Commons to have the final say and push through its agenda even if the Lords disagrees.
Lord Strathclyde said this new procedure would be the "ping without the pong" referring to legislation that goes back and forth between the House of Commons and Lords until both agree, commonly known as ping-ponging. Lord Strathclyde told a packed Upper House this new procedure would be the "ping without the pong" referring to legislation that goes back and forth between the House of Commons and Lords until both agree, commonly known as ping-ponging.
During the debate in the House of Lords on the changes to tax credits, Lord Strathclyde said there was "some confusion" about what the implications were of the different motions challenging the government. But Baroness Smith said it was "an unnecessary solution to a fictitious problem".
He said these motions were "fatal" in practice as the legislation wouldn't pass unless "certain conditions were met". Therefore there was a need for a review "as at a stroke there was then more one interpretation" of what the role of the second chamber was. "The reality is that we seldom use our powers to their limits," she said.
He noted that as more peers were appointed on merit, rather than being hereditary peers, the house had developed a "new confidence" but it had lost its "collective memory" and had a "lesser understanding of the implications of what happens when we use our powers too aggressively". "But that doesn't mean they shouldn't exist."
However Baroness Smith, shadow leader of the House of Lords, accused the government of trying to "stifle debate, shut down opposition and block proper scrutiny". Unlike in the Commons, the Conservatives do not have a majority in the House of Lords.
Making his maiden speech in the House of Lords, former Labour chancellor Alistair Darling said he understood the frustration of being a government minister.
George Osborne should have been grateful to peers for bringing about the reversal, he said, recalling the former Labour government's much-criticised abolition of the 10p rate of income tax.
He said the tax credit changes should have been introduced as primary legislation in the first place, which would have allowed the Lords to scrutinise them.
"I am increasingly concerned about the amount of constitutional change taking place in this country on a piecemeal basis," he added.
In recent years, Lord Strathclyde said the House of Lords had developed a "lesser understanding of the implications of what happens when we use our powers too aggressively" and enjoyed "unfettered powers" to veto secondary legislation.
Under the proposed model, he said: "We have a conversation between the two Houses but they (the Commons) have the final say."
It was right for the Lords to have a new procedure "to do what we do best, which is to ask the Commons to think again", he added.