Lords rebels meet to kill the bill

The Lords reform rebels held a debrief today following David Cameron’s offer to the 1922 committee, I understand.

The meeting, which took place mid-afternoon, was about what the rebels ‘need to do going forward to ensure that the Bill is dead’, one senior source told me. The rebels were not at all impressed by the suggestions that the Prime Minister put to backbenchers last night, and the meeting decided that offering the Liberal Democrats a smaller elected element in the upper house was a ‘Trojan horse’ by which more elected members could be added over time. The source explained that the MPs involved ‘did not want to be awkward’, but that ‘we need to uphold the principle’ of an appointed chamber.

So the plan is now to ensure that the next programme motion that will be offered in the autumn gets voted down, too. The rebels are already threatening that the rebellion on this will be even bigger than the revolt the whips ran scared from on Tuesday.