The Tories' Lords review will make parliament even less accountable

No sooner had the Lords voted down the government’s cuts to tax credits than Downing Street was promising a ‘rapid review’ of the chamber’s powers. There are no details yet, but we can be fairly confident that it will entail removing the Lords’ right to veto statutory instruments.

But the Lords did not break any rules. Constitutionally, they cannot rebel against policies in the governing party’s manifesto and they cannot rebel against financial bills. But the tax credits cut was not in the manifesto and in fact was the subject of highly misleading comments by the prime minister during the election campaign. And it did not appear in a bill but in a statutory instrument, a mechanism designed to speed minor changes in law through parliament with a minimum of debate, and now regularly misused by successive governments.

This morning, Boris Johnson and Chris Grayling either lied about what had happened or demonstrated that they were profoundly ignorant of the political stand-off they were commenting on. Johnson said:

“I think the House of Lords is in grave danger of pushing its luck, frankly. This is not what they are there to do. They are a revising chamber. They are not there to throw out financial bills from the elected House of Commons.”