Now that we can’t brace ourselves for the SNP ruling over Westminster and the Labour party as we’d been warned (though they still seem to be having a bit of fun), the House of Lords has become the location of potential uprisings against the Tory government.
The bulk of Lib Dem and Labour peers, along with a good number of cross benchers, who could work together to defeat a government bill does look rather threatening, though it’s worth remembering that even on a good day, attendance in the Lords isn’t anywhere near 100 per cent, and crossbenchers do tend to pull back rather nervously from anything that they think is too ‘political’.
But before big bills start causing rows in the Other Place, there could still be trouble ahead. The Labour team in the Lords – whose organisation and experience is one of the reasons there were quite so many defeats on government business in the last parliament – are on the lookout for clever tricks pulled by Tory ministers who are hoping to sneak policies that the Lib Dems blocked in the last parliament (or that the Lords combined to defeat) using secondary legislation to acts that have already been passed.
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