Nick Clegg: Lords reform plans to be abandoned

Nick Clegg: Lords reform plans to be abandoned

Nick Clegg: "The conservative party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform"

Plans to reform the House of Lords are being abandoned after Conservatives "broke the coalition contract", Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg says.

As a result, he said Lib Dem MPs could not now support Conservative-backed changes to parliamentary boundaries.

Mr Clegg said all three parties had supported reform of the Lords in their 2010 election manifestos.

But he said it was clear that agreement could not be reached and it faced a "slow death" in the Commons.

The deputy prime minister said he was "disappointed" with the outcome, adding that he had offered the Conservatives a referendum on the issue in 2015 as part of a compromise but this was rejected.

He said the Conservatives could not take a "pick and choose" approach to the coalition agreement, entered into by both parties in 2010.
'Mutual respect'
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The Conservative party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform and, as a result, part of our contract has now been broken”

Nick Clegg Deputy Prime Minister

To make sure the contract remained "balanced" the Lib Dems now wanted to delay proposals to reduce the size of the Commons from 650 to 600 MPs and to redraw parliamentary boundaries - thought likely to favour the Conservatives - until after the 2015 election.

"The Conservative Party is not honouring the commitment to Lords reform and, as a result, part of our contract has now been broken," he said.

"Clearly I cannot permit a situation where Conservative rebels can pick and choose the parts of the contract they like, while Liberal Democrat MPs are bound to the entire agreement."

While he was still committed to keeping the coalition going, Mr Clegg said it was a "reciprocal arrangement" and could only work if it was based on "mutual respect".
Tory opposition

As a result, he said he had decided "reluctantly to push the pause button" on both Lords reform and proposed changes to parliamentary boundaries to equalise the size of constituencies in 2015.

Although these have already been approved in principle by MPs, they require a further vote on their implementation in time for the next election.

Mr Clegg said:"I have told the prime minister that when, in due course, parliament votes on boundary changes for the 2015 election I will be instructing my party to oppose them."

The Lords reform plans which would have seen 80% of peers elected and the total number of members halved to 450.

But 91 Conservative MPs rebelled against the government in a vote in July - the largest such act of defiance since the coalition was formed in 2010 - while Labour said more time was needed to scrutinise the plans to address concerns about how they would work.

Mr Clegg accused Labour of playing politics with the issue.

"In my discussions with the Labour Party leadership, they have made it clear that while they continue to back Lords reform in principle, they are set on blocking it in practice," he said. "Supporting the ends, but - when push comes to shove - obstructing the means."
'One more try'

The prime minister told Tory MPs last month he would make "one more try" to push Lords reform through in September when the Commons returned from its summer recess.

Conservative MP John Whittingdale said Mr Cameron quickly realised there was no prospect of the rebels being won round.

"I think the answer became pretty clear that that there is overwhelming opposition in the Conservative Party to any form of elected House of Lords," he told BBC Radio 4's World at One.

"And therefore he (David Cameron) had to accept that this was not going to happen. Nick Clegg has just had to also now accept that reality."

Lib Dem MP Martin Horwood said the Conservatives "had become the G4S of British politics" and had "failed to deliver" - a reference to the firm involved in a row about security ahead of the Olympics.

Asked about the coalition's future, Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt said disagreements over the Lords would not affect the two parties' commitment to work together.

"The really important thing about this coalition is that we came together to sort out the economic mess that we inherited from Labour," he told Sky News. "There isn't a cigarette paper between us on that."

Agree with the above poster, it's absolutely ridiculous. You'd think with such broad support it would just be a matter of hashing out some details but you can never underestimate the capacity of the tory backbenchers and opposition labour to be complete ****ers on things like this.

Legitimate policy disagreements are one thing, but messing about like this is ridiculous. Politics is ****

Agreed. No wonder people are disinterested in politics these days.

In fact, I see no reason at all why the leadership of all 3 party's cannot work together on this issue as they believe the same thing. Perhaps they could agree to give members a free vote to satisfy Tory backbenchers. The end result: Lords reform is passed, back bench Tories get to oppose it, and for once the public can see politicians behaving in a the kind of way we really ought to expect.

Cameron is still going to go ahead with the Boundary vote, probably because he believes he can either get the smaller parties into a deal over it or he believes if he forces a No Confidence vote on the issue the Lib Dems will have no choice but to vote for it because an election would destroy them.

I understand this is likely a ridiculous suggestion, but is there any chance Labour won't oppose it / won't whip all their members against it? Afterall, boundary changes do seem to be good in the name of principle and democracy. On the other hand, turkey's don't vote for Christmas.
I realise in Tory circles this is quite an important issue, but are the others all that concerned anyway?

I understand this is likely a ridiculous suggestion, but is there any chance Labour won't oppose it / won't whip all their members against it? Afterall, boundary changes do seem to be good in the name of principle and democracy. On the other hand, turkey's don't vote for Christmas.
I realise in Tory circles this is quite an important issue, but are the others all that concerned anyway?

This is the problem with adversarial politics. Regardless of how we feel about the issue at hand (I'm pro-reform, but hey ho), nobody can ignore the fact that no major parties stick to a philosophy or manifesto anymore - everything is about political point-scoring.

This is the problem with adversarial politics. Regardless of how we feel about the issue at hand (I'm pro-reform, but hey ho), nobody can ignore the fact that no major parties stick to a philosophy or manifesto anymore - everything is about political point-scoring.

I can't see the Labour MPs supporting it as it makes it harder for them to achieve a majority, it doesn't matter what the polls say now in 3 years it could be much more different.

If it goes to a No Confidence issue the Labour MPs will whip there people to go against it.

It is quite ironic that Clegg is having a tantrum about not getting Lords reform (a manifesto commitment that probably swayed few voters) whilst he supported tuition fees (a manifesto commitment that probably gained the LDs several seats). I guess it shows how manifesto commitments are really vague ideas in today's politics rather than a promise to implement them.

I think one of the big differences is that in Principle, the rest of the parties initially said they were willing to co-operate with them on Lords reform, whereas there is no way in hell the Tories would have co-operated with them on Tuition fees.