Peers prepare for marathon AV battle

Just seen the PM’s Chief of Staff Ed Llewellyn making his way to the House of Lords and no prizes for guessing why. Like the Deputy PM, the PM is taking a close interest in what is happening to the Coalition Bill on the AV referendum and cutting the number of MPs to 600.

At 10pm the government will announce that it is going to keep the Lords up all night. The Lords staff have brought in beds, duvets and pillows – there are separate dorms for opposition, government and crossbench peers, within these groups separate dorms for men and women. No mixed wards here.

Certain peers with medical backgrounds have been encouraged to hang around and be available, I am told, just in case some of the older peers find the going tough. There are Mrs Doyle-style piles of sandwiches ready to sustain their Lordships through the night.

This isn’t such a novelty in Lords-land. There were through-the-night sittings in 2005 (control orders) and 2003 (social care). What’s novel is the declaration of intent.

Lord Falconer told the Lords this afternoon that the only way he and his fellow Labour peers would step aside is if the government dumps its commitment to reducing the size of the Commons and equalising the size of seats from this Bill. Then the Lib Dems could have their AV referendum on 5 May. But David Cameron would’ve lost a cherished reform close to his own heart. And, No. 10 worries, a precedent will have been set for Labour to stand in front of any bill it likes.

So how will this stand-off end? Tories reserve the right to threaten to press the nuclear button and timetable a Lords measure – that’s never done (it wasn’t done in the Commons until 1881 after Fenian MPs stretched out consideration of Gladstone’s Coercion Bill).

The Lords don’t really want to go down that route but the threat hangs in the air. One government member told me he thought the most likely outcome was “peer pressure” – Crossbenchers might pull Lord Falconer and his merry band aside and tell them it’s not on and they need to pull back. Labour’s saying it won’t be backing down. Someone will but it won’t necessarily be any time very soon.