Could this Lords paper save the Rwanda Bill?

Parliamentary procedures and conventions are often dismissed as ‘arcane’ or ‘byzantine’ by commentators. Still, on occasion, they can have a significant impact on politics – as demonstrated by the recent furore over a Labour amendment to the Gaza ceasefire motion in February.

Last week, a new paper in the House of Lords was published which has the potential to have a similar political impact – and could even save the government’s controversial Rwanda Bill, which is in its Report Stage today.

The paper, by the convenor of the crossbench peers Lord Kinnoull, is on the Salisbury-Addison convention, which says that the Lords will not vote against Bills which were in the government’s manifesto. The convention began in 1945 to deal with the relationship between a Labour government and a House of Lords filled with hereditary Conservatives.

The idea underpinning the convention is that manifesto bills enjoy a special form of democratic legitimacy as, directly or indirectly, they have been endorsed by the electorate.