Government suffers its first Article 50 bill defeat

In the past few minutes, the government has lost a vote in the House of Lords on a key aspect of Brexit: the status of EU nationals.

Peers are at the Committee Stage of the bill that allows the government to trigger Article 50, and despite attempts by Home Secretary Amber Rudd to reassure them that this issue will be the priority once the negotiations for Britain to leave the European Union have begun, they backed Amendment 9b, which says the government should guarantee now that EU nationals living in the UK will have their rights protected. The House voted 358 to 256 for the cross-party amendment.

Rudd was watching the debates this afternoon. Discussions largely divided between those who believe that it is pragmatic to try to address this issue at the right stage of the negotiations, and that ministers will get a better outcome not just for EU citizens living here, but Brits living in other European countries, and those who hate the way people’s lives are being used as a bargaining chip. But some peers were also uncomfortable with the way the Lords was seeking to add policies to a very short bill with only one real aim. This is the first defeat for the government on the bill, and the government will try to reverse the change at the ping-pong stage between the two Houses before Royal Assent.