{"id":9364,"date":"2015-10-27T08:01:36","date_gmt":"2015-10-27T15:01:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/uks-house-of-lords-hands-cameron-defeat-on-tax-credit-cuts\/"},"modified":"2015-10-27T08:01:36","modified_gmt":"2015-10-27T15:01:36","slug":"uks-house-of-lords-hands-cameron-defeat-on-tax-credit-cuts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/uks-house-of-lords-hands-cameron-defeat-on-tax-credit-cuts\/","title":{"rendered":"UK’s House of Lords hands Cameron defeat on tax credit cuts"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014<\/strong> Britain\u2019s unelected House of Lords dealt a strong defeat to Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s government \u2014 and provoked a constitutional squabble \u2014on Monday by voting to delay a cut in tax credits.<\/p>\n

The 307 to 277 vote in favor of halting the cuts pending an independent review put the House of Lords in a rare clash with the elected House of Commons, which backed the measure, part of the Conservative government\u2019s spending cuts aimed at reducing Britain\u2019s deficit.<\/p>\n

The cuts would slash $6.8 billion in tax credits for parents and people in low-income jobs. The opposition Labour Party opposed the move, saying it would leave up to 3 million people hundreds of dollars a year worse off.<\/p>\n

A growing number of Conservative politicians have also argued against the measure, saying it would weaken the party\u2019s claim to represent working people.<\/p>\n

The government claims the cuts will be offset by other measures, including a higher minimum wage.<\/p>\n

After an emotional debate, the House of Lords took the unusual step of refusing to back a Commons\u2019 vote involving fiscal matters. The Conservatives have a majority in the Commons but not in the Lords, whose members are mostly political appointees, with a smattering of hereditary nobles, judges and clergy.<\/p>\n

Treasury chief George Osborne, who championed the cuts, conceded defeat and said he would introduce measures to lessen their impact on working people.<\/p>\n

\u201cI said I would listen and that\u2019s precisely what I intend to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

But Osborne said the Lords\u2019 vote \u201craises constitutional issues that need to be dealt with.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the House of Commons, Conservative lawmaker Edward Leigh said the rights of legislators were being trampled by the unelected Lords.<\/p>\n

\u201cNot for 100 years has the House of Lords defied this elected House,\u201d he said after the Lords\u2019 vote tally was announced.<\/p>\n

By tradition, the House of Lords can only revise, and not overturn, legislation passed by the Commons. But the tax-credit changes take the form of new regulations rather than a new law, so members of the Lords asserted they have the power to stop them.<\/p>\n

Labour Treasury spokesman John McDonnell had urged the government to do a \u201cU-turn\u201d on the measures to protect British workers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThese are people who go to work, look after their kids, do everything asked of them and they are going to lose, on average, about 1,300 pounds ($2,000) a year,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 Britain\u2019s unelected House of Lords dealt a strong defeat to Prime Minister David Cameron\u2019s government \u2014 and provoked a constitutional squabble \u2014on Monday by voting to delay a cut in tax credits. The 307 to 277 vote in favor of halting the cuts pending an independent review<\/a> put the House of Lords in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-9364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9364"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9364\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9364"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=9364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}