Members of Parliament will be asked tomorrow to overturn a Conservative amendment secured in the House of Lords which blocks plans to lift the disqualification on members of the Oireachtas sitting at the Northern Ireland Assembly and Westminster.
Cabinet Office Minister, Lord Falconer of Thoroton, told peers in the Lords during the third reading of the Disqualifications Bill yesterday the government intended to argue for the reintroduction of Clause 1 of the proposed legislation. The current parliamentary session ends this week and the decision means if the amendment is reintroduced the Bill will have to go back to the Lords for consideration.
The government suffered its first defeat on Northern Ireland legislation in the Lords last week when peers voted by 165 to 152 for a Tory amendment, deleting Clause 1 of the Bill.