MPs: Pull the plug on Lords

THE House of Lords must be reformed after its votes to thwart Brexit, leading Tory MPs said yesterday.

Describing peers as out of control, they said the Upper House had gone too far with amendments wrecking the Government’s EU legislation.

Iain Duncan Smith warned there had to be a ‘reckoning’ and a ‘complete and total overhaul’ of the Lords.

The backlash was sparked by peers voting to keep Britain in the single market and to remove the fixed date for leaving the EU. They had already amended the

Withdrawal Bill 12 times. The latest two votes were spearheaded by the Duke of Wellington, a Europhile former MEP, and Lord Alli, a TV mogul who advised Tony Blair on youth culture.

Tory MP Daniel Kawczynski said abolition of the House of Lords should be in his party’s next election manifesto.

‘These unelected Lords, some of whom are still there despite being bankrupt or going to jail, are completely out of control,’ he said.

‘The time has come to have a rootand-branch reform. These people are now hurting the UK’s negotiating position with Brussels, which is unforgivable.’

Mr Kawczynski said peers had been deliberately trying to overturn the result of the European referendum of June 2016.

Mr Duncan Smith, who led the Tories from 2001 to 2003, said: ‘After this is all over, there will have to be a reckoning, a complete and total overhaul of the House of Lords. That reckoning I’m afraid is one they have brought on themselves.

‘I have believed in reforming the upper chamber for years. Their behaviour on this Bill, to defeat the Government 14 times is to almost rewrite it.

‘It is unprecedented and displays the enormous arrogance of some of them.’

Bernard Jenkin, the Tory chairman of the Commons public administration and constitutional affairs committee, said it was appalling that peers felt entitled to vote to keep Britain in the single market.

He added: ‘They have completely ignored what is known as the Salisbury Convention, where traditionally for 100 years the House of Lords has respected the manifesto commitments of an elected government to be no-go areas for challenging the Commons.

‘The two main parties both had in their manifestos that we were leaving the EU, leaving the single market and leaving the customs union. They have broken all the conventions. On Tuesday night, they inflicted four defeats on the Government in one evening.

‘They have become drunk with their own prejudices in defiance of how the people voted in the referendum and the last general election.’

Jacob Rees-Mogg MP, who leads the proBrexit European Research Group, said the House of Lords had made itself appear undemocratic and out of touch.

‘It raises the issues of reform again,’ he added. ‘It leaves them with very few supporters.

‘It is not a loved institution, it is a tolerated institution when it obeys the constitutional norms; if it ignores them it has very little support left. They are completely obsessed by the European Union… Their whole aim is to stop Brexit.’

The 14 amendments will now be sent back to the Commons where they will be considered by MPs. Ministers are expected to ask for them all to be deleted.

Mrs May’s official spokesman yesterday said the Prime Minister was disappointed by the latest defeats. ‘The legislation is intended to deliver the smooth Brexit which is in the interests of everybody in the UK,’ he added.

‘We will not accept attempts to use this legislation to stop us taking back control of our money, our laws and our borders.’

A senior Labour spokesman said Jeremy Corbyn believed staying in the single market would stop him from pursuing his Left-wing

‘They have broken all the conventions’

agenda, including state aid and nationalisations. He said Britain needed a relationship with the EU that would ‘offer the flexibility needed to achieve a step change in how the economy is run’.

The spokesman declined to say whether the party’s MPs would be told to abstain in the Commons on the amendment to keep the UK in the European Economic Area. Peers passed the amendment on Tuesday thanks to a large rebellion by Labour Lords in defiance of Mr Corbyn’s orders to abstain.

It is understood that Mrs May has ruled out any immediate sanctions on the Lords, including an option to appoint 100 new Tory peers to help Brexit legislation get passed.

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