The coalition government led by Prime Minister David Cameron faced major embarrassment on Tuesday after it was forced to drop a vote on the contentious bill about the reform of the House of Lords as it faced likely defeat in the House of Commons.
The Opposition Labour Party, which also planned to oppose the motion due to be tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday evening, has been blamed by the Conservative Party for going back on its pledge to support the bill.
The growing number of Tory MPs, including 70 who has openly opposed the bill, led the nervous coalition to drop the vote. Prime Minister David Cameron had on Tuesday afternoon appealed to the Labour Party to support the bill and did not indicated that the vote would be dropped.
“It is time that we reform the House of Lords because it has gone up to 900 people. There are still people there who are there because their ancestors were given a peerage a century ago,” he said. “For it to happen, all of those that support reform need to act together, work together and vote together.”
Labour’s shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan MP, commenting on the decision to withdraw the programme motion, said: “I’m pleased that the government have seen sense and withdrawn their attempt to stifle debate on the Lords reform bill. While we’ve already committed ourselves to support progress of the Bill, we wanted ample time for Parliament to knock into shape what is a substandard set of proposals.” He insisted that the Labour had not wrecked the chance of reforming the House of Lords. “This is not a wrecking tactic — far from it. We’ve already given our assurances we’ll do all we can to ensure the Bill progresses. Instead, it’s about making good an inadequate bill. And that means allowing Parliament the time to revise amend and improve the Bill free from the threat of debate being stifled. The future of a reformed House of Lords should be all the better as a result.”