Government suffers Lords defeat over benefit cap plan

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The government has been defeated in the Lords in a vote on its plans for a £26,000-a-year household benefit cap.

Peers backed a bishop's amendment by 252 to 237 that child benefit should not be included in the cap.

Critics argued that imposing the same cap on all families, regardless of size, would penalise children.

Ministers say including child benefit would make the cap pointless by effectively raising it to £50,000 and they will seek to overturn the defeat.

Earlier the government defeated another amendment proposed by Labour to exempt people considered at risk of homelessness from the cap.

The annual cap would come into force for working age families in England, Scotland and Wales from 2013.

cont.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-16675314

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wait, a Lord Spiritual actually did something?!

I like to think that they were all sitting down to afternoon tea in the gardens of their respective Bishops Palaces when all of them heard (no doubt on Radio Four) that the government intended to include child benefit in the cap. And that then, and all at once, they spat out a mouthful of tea in horror. There would probably also have been the audible clinking of fine bone china as the cups were put down, and faster than normal, in their respective saucers. Heads would have been shaken, and perhaps they would also have been put off their Madeira Cake, at least for that particular moment. Something, the all thought to themselves, simply must be done.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

You still have the house of lords?

Hilarious, isn't it?

When they swear in they have to wear ermine.