Detente – not the end of the Cold War in the Lords

The shadow over the AV referendum set for 5 May has lifted. So the government hopes. Labour says it’s more detente than the end of the Cold War.

Labour’s been granted public inquiries into boundary changes but THEY – rather than Lords debates – will now be “guillotined” or time-limited to six months so they can’t stop the Government getting the new boundaries up and ready for 2015.

Lord Falconer, who had masterminded the Labour guerilla warfare in the Lords (or meticulous scrutiny of a major constitutional measure – depending on who you talk to), said he was content with the compromises but there is more work to be done and he wasn’t going to be guaranteeing the Government gets its Bill until there was agreement on an inquiry into the number of seats the Commons should have and the variation in size that should be permitted.

Crossbenchers look triumphant. A lot of them didn’t like Labour playing fast and loose with the conventions of the Lords by stringing out the debates on the Bill to extract maximum concessions. They also didn’t like the Government threatening to introduce timetables on Bills, imposed by majority vote and not agreed by “the usual channel” conversations between Government and Opposition.

Who blinked in the stand-off? Labour is insisting that the Government blinked because it didn’t bring in its guillotine motion. But Labour was under “peer pressure” itself to play by the rules and has stood down its Lords fillibuster/rigorous scrutiny without  getting concessions on the areas they most wanted: inquiries that might hold up the boundary review beyond 2015 and a variation in seat size wider than the 5 per cent allowed for in the Bill.

Labour says it might yet get those concessions … but on what we know now right now I’d say the scores on the boards were: Gov 2 – Opposition 1 – Crossbenchers 3.

Here, for interest, are the tallies for the Lords which shows you the balance of power and why the Government needed the Crossbenchers’ support.

Conservatives 204
Lib Dems 83
Labour 233
Crossbenchers 181