Tax Credits (Income Thresholds and Determination of Rates) (Amendment) Regulations 2015

Lord Rooker Excerpts

Monday 26th October 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Fowler]

I leave it to the Leader of the House and the noble Earl who will be winding up to put it in specific words, but I think that not an unfair representation of what she said. We are the unelected House. The other place is the elected one. The measure has already been voted on twice, if not three times in the Commons. We cannot have the unelected House trying to impose its will on £5 billion of savings. I say one thing to the ex-Members of the House of Commons who are here: I do not remember their saying when we were in the House of Commons together, “We must give more financial power over what happens to the House of Lords”. I do not remember at any stage that point being made by anyone in any party on this particular position. I think a certain degree of humility might therefore be in order.

[Lord Rooker (Lab)]

I agree entirely with the point made by the noble Lord. Does this not show, though, that our powers on statutory instruments are far too drastic, as was pointed out in the report on conventions? It would be better if we gave up the power to accept or reject a statutory instrument in exchange for maybe two amendments, which would deal with the point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lawson—we could have tweaked it but we could not have opposed it anyway. There may be a lifeboat in this, if we could get something out of it in the way we deal with secondary legislation and avoid all this in future.

[Lord Fowler]

That is obviously something we can consider for the future, and on first hearing sounds an attractive proposition. However, we are considering what we are doing now and not in the future.

I make a last point. In spite of some of the criticism—no, the attack—now being directed at this House, it is my view that it carries out a very valuable series of functions. The Members I meet here day by day are hard-working, not just on the Floor of the House but in Select Committees. However, we need to recognise one common-sense thing: that as long as this is an appointed House, we must accept the limitations on our powers, particularly in financial matters. To ignore those limitations is not in the interests of Parliament, it is certainly not in the interests of the House of Lords and it is not in the interests of the public. It cannot be justified and that is why I will be voting against these amendments.