House of Lords

That's why the LD's are playing up. Trying to make the second chamber untenable in it's current form.

I'm not sure it's in their interests that it's reformed in this Parliament as they are likely to be excluded from any significant interest.

Hypocritical tories have some neck to say peers voting
against tax credits would be a constitutional crisis
When only 7 years ago the lords voted against Labours
high earners National insurance  hikes

Voting against   tax credits   CUTS  imo

Lampus if you don't understand something, it's best to say nothing.

pot  kettle 

Voting now. Bit of a cliff hanger I reckon. Cracking debate though.

X-Benchers will decide this. Not sure if they feel b*ggering about with the constitution is a good idea.

Lib Dem's defeated. Now voting on Meacher.

This may be closer. Hollis amendment closer still.

Meacher passes.

Fairness  v  unfairness

FAIRNESS  WINS

After the Meacher vote (307-277) the Hollis amendment should be a penalty kick.

FAIRNESS  wins again

Short head!

Hollis passes as well.

It's a big call to see what the Gov. now does.

POO in the Commons on the constitutional crisis we now have.

An interview on C4 News earlier interested me.

Single Mum, 7 yrl od child. She works as a Teaching Assistant and earns £10500. She was upset to be in danger of losing £1400 a year...Nice house (rented) garden, no sign of partner/husband.

Usual sob story so I decide to look at the govt website...

I entered her details in the benefits calculator.

With a rent of £400 (she was from the north somewhere. I have a friend who pays similar for a small house) she would get the following:

Working Tax Credit: £1500
Child Tax Credit : £1200

Housing Benefit: £4265 (I don't believe that one. Basically nearly her whole rent paid for).

Council Tax support: £309

Child benefit : £1076.

That's over 8 grand....

Keeping up to date with ever moving goal posts isn't easy but I was taught that the Lords job was to act as a scrutinising and if necessary revising chamber which is then passed back to the Commons to reconsider the issue. The Commons can ultimately use the Royal Prerogative but in the meantime we aren't looking at a constitutional crisis but embarrassment for the government. Tough tittty.

I agree with what they`ve done, but dont agree with their right to do it, but only because of the make up the Lords. I dont believe hereditary peers, bishops and party sponsors should be in it. I like the second chamber being a check on the elected Govt - imagine Corbyn having a free hand... -  but only if you could get a second chamber made up of non party politicos, but a cross section of people from society (who would pass some kind of quality control mechanism), that would be much better..chances of that happening...nil.

Chances of it working if it did happen is also nil.

The problem is now what do we do with it? Has Cameron got a big enough majority to push through change of the HoL? In the meantime where does the £12B come from that LD/Lab have blocked. This is why you don't block money matters.

While it's short term bad headlines for the Gov. it's going to backfire on the opposition parties. Opposing manifesto pledges on money via the Lords is effectively saying the elected representatives are subservient to the appointed peers. Carnage.

the message to the sheep never ever ever trust the tories

CJ70 nail on head time labour and libs not in power its osbourne,s 12 billion cuts on the table not theres
its obvious now [ always was to some people ]that without cuts to tax credits or disability allowances the 12 billion  cuts in the benefit bill cant be met without further tax rises,so gideon,gove,ids and cameron repeatedly lied to the electorate during the election when continualy ruling out cuts to both on live tv,rather than blaming the house of commons they should be looking at themselves or are we saying lying to the electorate doesnt break parlimentary convention,this was only months ago not 2 or 3 years the circumstances havnt changed,with todays growth figures if people pull their belts in and stop spending the next recession is just over the hill,hows gideons fantasy growth and surplus figures looking now,6 yr forecasts disappearing up his own arse within 3 months ,par for the course never hit a target in 6 years

Eh? That post is extremely confused.

Conservatives won the election by promising to cut welfare. There's a section in the manifesto which explicitly says they will be cutting £12B from welfare.

In essence you have Lab/LD fighting the 2015 election all over again on a platform and agenda that the people rejected.

they denied countless time that they were cutting tax credits and disability allowances,what part of that are you having difficulty with
there now saying without cutting one or the other they cant meet their 12 billion cuts
hence they lied,the elected chamber lied you seem happy with that but getting flustered whether the other chamber did or did not go beyond their remit

I've already said this isn't that big a deal. From memory the Commons can send it back to the Lords and then the government can use the Royal Prerogative to force it through. Again from memory I think this principle was established by Lloyd George just before World War I. The Lords is doing what it is supposed to do.

I do partially agree with 1st timer. Whilst the Tories did say what they needed to do, Cameron in the live debates looked into the camera and flat out lied to the British people. It's up to them what they do about it. Not that I ever agree with Gormless introducing them in the first place.

Oct 27, 2015 -- 12:02PM, 1st time poster wrote:

they denied countless time that they were cutting tax credits and disability allowances,what part of that are you having difficulty withthere now saying without cutting one or the other they cant meet their 12 billion cutshence they lied,the elected chamber lied you seem happy with that but getting flustered whether the other chamber did or did not go beyond their remit

You still seem completely garbled.

There was no promise not to touch tax credits, Labour even campaigned that Conservatives would cut tax credits and they lost that argument. Which part of this did you miss?

Well you start of by putting up a premise which is wrong. The Lords stamping all over the constitution to fight the last election which they lost on this subject is silly. Now we have a situation where the manifesto cuts are still going to come and a second house which is in disrepute.

Oct 27, 2015 -- 12:19PM, Eeternaloptimist wrote:

I've already said this isn't that big a deal. From memory the Commons can send it back to the Lords and then the government can use the Royal Prerogative to force it through. Again from memory I think this principle was established by Lloyd George just before World War I. The Lords is doing what it is supposed to do.I do partially agree with 1st timer. Whilst the Tories did say what they needed to do, Cameron in the live debates looked into the camera and flat out lied to the British people. It's up to them what they do about it. Not that I ever agree with Gormless introducing them in the first place.

Think you might need to watch that debate again EO. He very clearly states he wouldn't cut child tax credits, which haven't been cut.

I have not seen any proposals from the Lords as to how else you stop the rapidly growing public deficit. I woulsd actually share the cuts in benefits out more broadly including the old age pension, although I am drawing it myself. If everyone took a hit, we would reduce the deficit more quickly and soon be able to reverse the changes as they did in Ireland.

Whatever it said in the manifesto Cameron said on TV he would not cut tax credits ( well that's what it meant to anybody but the most weaselly spin doctor. If they were so proud of this cut why did they try to sneak it through in a Statutory Instrument and not a Bill ?

https://fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/child_tax_credit_cut_promise-46421

There we go.

All that seems to say is that cameron meant to say Child Benefit but referred to Tax Credits ( by accident ). How convenient.
Further obfuscation by Boris saying the Lords shouldn't throw out Bills. I presume HE meant to say Statutory Instruments.

Well it's a direct transcript of what he said. He clearly refers to child tax credits.

Quite.

It appears some people are horrified by the fact that politicians lie

Hardly. I do find it a bit much when they get their knickers in a twist about the Lords blocking a measure which their leader said was not on the table before the election.

Unelected therefore illegitimate.

Abolish it asap.

The irony of the latest spat is that the Lords are not supposed to vote on finance. No politician seeking reelection will ever have the courage to run a budget surplus.