The House of Lords has voted to delay the introduction of controversial cuts to welfare benefits paid to people on low incomes, despite warnings that such a move could provoke a constitutional crisis.
The Conservative government said that rejecting its proposals, which have been approved by the House of Commons, breached a convention under which the House of Lords does not vote against financial measures approved by the Commons.
The Lords approved two amendments, including one proposed by Labour's Baroness Hollis which would prevent the cuts to tax credits coming into force in their current form.
Conservatives said the vote was a serious breach of constitutional convention.
“It is up to us as a House to consider whether we regard the financial primacy of the House of Commons as vital to the continuing constitution of this country and the way in which parliament operates,” the Conservative leader of the House of Lords, Baroness Stowell, said at the start of the debate.
Tax credits are social welfare benefits introduced by the last Labour government to help low-paid families. The current government argues that they are a subsidy to employers who pay low wages and claims that the impact of cutting them will be offset by planned increases in the minimum wage.
Welfare budget
The cuts to tax credits account for £4.4 billion (€6.1 billion) out of a total planned reduction of the welfare budget of £12 billion.
“If we want people to earn more and to keep more of their own money, we simply cannot keep recycling their money through a system that subsidises low pay,” Baroness Stowell said.
Baroness Hollis said that Lords could either be supportive of the government or supportive of the three million families who will receive letters at Christmas, telling them on average they will lose around £1,300 a year.
“That is our choice. Those families believed us. They believed us when we all said that work was the best route out of poverty. That work would always pay. They believed the prime minister when he promised that tax credits would not be touched,” she said.
