Government defeated twice in the Lords on tax credits

The government was defeated twice in the Lords tonight on tax credits, with the motions put down by Baroness Meacher and Baroness Hollis both passing. We are now expecting a response from George Osborne this evening on what the government will do. Considering that these tax credit changes are meant to bring in £4.4 billion in 2016/17, the government is in a proper pickle.

Now, the motions in the Lords tonight were not ‘fatal’, they don’t compel the government to abandon the tax credit changes wholesale. But the Hollis amendment means that existing tax credit claimants would be exempted from the cuts until they had moved on to universal credit

Tonight’s defeats are a reminder for the government, if it needed one, that it doesn’t have a majority in the House of Lords. The question now is whether the government ratchets up the pressure with more threats to create more peers to get the government’s agenda through the upper house, or backs down.