Lords at war Are activist Tory peers trying to 'grind Labour down'?

Dining in the House of Lords canteen just after Labour came to power, one Labour adviser found themselves sitting opposite two Tory peers.

- Jessica Elgot Deputy political editor

In particular, the pair were fuming about the forthcoming abolition of hereditary peers. Both agreed, the adviser said, that there should be a deliberate strategy to undermine the government on all its legislation, to slow down debate, and to push the new Lords leader, Angela Smith, to ask No 10 for concessions.

Another recalled a Conservative peer gleefully telling the new Labour Lords appointees: “We are going to grind you down.”

Even with an enormous majority in the Commons, Labour has seemed to struggle to pass much of its programme. But by far the hardest slog has been in the Lords. Labour may yet be on course for a record number of defeats for any governing party - though the parliamentary session has been longer than normal. Already the government has suffered 111 defeats, with at least four more months to go. The record is 128 defeats for the Conservatives, under Boris Johnson during the 2021-2022 session.

Labour peers said that virtually every bill had been slowed down, from key manifesto pledges on water regulation to rail nationalisation, Great British Energy and the football regulator. The employment rights bill was repeatedly rejected, even after a major concession. Amendments are being “degrouped” at late stages into smaller groups of one or two, meaning that debates lasted hours longer. “Each time it is more or less the same people,” one Labour peer said. “Former Tory MPs, making the same kind of speeches over and over again.”

“The usual channels are not operating,” another Labour peer said. “The conventions do not apply. It’s essentially a particular group of former Tory MPs who act like they are still in the Commons but actually have more power to cause disruption, because they can intervene, they can try to adjourn, they can push anything to a vote, they basically don’t give a fuck about how the Lords normally operates.”