27/10/2015 Daily Politics

Hello and welcome to the Daily Politics.

My Lords, they have voted, contents 289, not contents, 272.

Unelected peers are accused of committing

a "constitutional outrage" as they frustrate the will

of the elected Commons on cuts to tax credits.

George Osborne says the Lords will have to be "dealt with" - but how?

The Chancellor also says he's in listening mode

But can he save face - and money - whilst softening the impact

Jeremy Corbyn cedes some control of the Scottish Labour Party -

can it help turn around the party's fortunes?

We'll be talking to the party's leader in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale.

And it may have an appalling human rights record, but is Britain's

relationship with Saudi Arabia too important to put at risk?

All that in the next hour and with us for the whole of the programme,

the journalist and writer Toby Young.

Someone who loves causing outrage, constitutional or otherwise. Welcome

to the programme. Good afternoon. In the past few minutes, the

Chancellor has faced the Commons, and the first time since last

night's defeat, at Treasury questions. Let's listen to some of

the exchanges. On five occasions in the last decade have the House of

Lords blocked a statutory incident, never on a financial matter, and we

had a whole range of opinions from Lord Butler to constitutional

experts telling us yesterday that this was unprecedented. It is

something we are going to have to address, the Prime Minister has made

that very clear and that is what we are going to do, in order to make

that very clear and that is what we sure the elected House of Commons is

responsible for the tax and spend decisions that affect the people of

this country. This is not a constitutional matter. They will

lose ?1300 a year. Given what happened in the other place last

night, can I reassure the Chancellor that if he brings forward proposals

to reverse the cuts to tax credits fairly and in fall, he will not be

attacked by this side of the House. Indeed... Indeed, he will be

applauded. But can he assure us that whatever proposals he brings

forward, he will not support any that an independent assessments

demonstrates will cause any child to be forced to live below the poverty

line? John McDonnell ending that piece.

With me now are the Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary Owen Smith and

David Davies, what do you want to George Osborne to do precisely in

his Autumn Statement to mitigate the impact of the tax credit cuts?

Directly or indirectly to stage this change. The problem is what George

wants to do is to have the increasing minimum wage,

wants to do is to have the wage, take on the burden from the

taxpayers. The trouble was, all of the

taxpayers. The trouble was, all of national minimum wage does not get

to its proper peak until the end of the parliament. Just put them in

step, it is simple, the parliament. Just put them in

would be satisfied and you think your colleagues would be satisfied?

Broadly, yes, that's right. Do you agree with that, or do you want

something more radical, some sort of reversal in the tax credit cuts

themselves, not just an extra bit of money or a staging of the transition

to mitigate the impact of those cuts? We have argued for repeal of

them and we will be voting against in a couple of hours' time for

repeal and the reason is, David is right, it will mitigate part of the

change, even if George Osborne were to raise the national minimum wage

to ?9 20, his excellent ambition, by 2020, even if you were to do that

immediately, people on average would be worse off as a result of the

cuts. It won't offset the amount of money the average family is set to

lose as a result of the tax credit changes. Throw in the childcare

allowance, throw in the personal tax allowance, add them up and they will

still be, on average, worse off, so it is a bit of smoke and mirrors. So

there is a divergences in what you want to see changed. I rest my case

that it is complicated. This is a very complicated system and we have

got some fine tuning to do but the simple truth is the staging will

deal with most of the problem. Was this really the way to do it, to

take on George Osborne and the Government in this way? I mean, he

had already said, or rather he had sent out people representing him to

say he was in listening mode. Wouldn't it have been better to hear

what he had to say? That was quite late on. I voted against this back

in September and the difficulty was we had a statutory instrument. It is

very technical again, but it is put to the House of Commons in take it

or leave it form. If you really want to reform it, there is a

Parliamentary procedure, an act of Parliament and you go through

reform. You don't say, here it is and I will think about it after the

event. It is too difficult important and complex. That was a mistake, a

tactical and strategic error, if you are just looking at it from up a

little Parliamentary terms from George Osborne's perspective, to

give the House of Lords room to say this is not a piece of legislation

that we are forced to vote on because it is a money matter, we can

take it as a welfare matter. It wasn't announced in the manifesto,

we can vote against it in all good conscience. The Conservatives did

say in the manifesto that they would find ?12 billion of savings from the

working age welfare bill, so I don't think you can say it wasn't flagged

at all. This is what the Lords will say. It was clearly right to get

this change through as quickly as possible because George Osborne need

to reduce the welfare bill if he is to meet his deficit target of

bringing the books into balance in this Parliament. It may have been,

in retrospect, quicker to include it in a Finance Bill but I think that

is because he didn't anticipate that the House of Lords would behave so

outrageously. And this judgment on his part? -- a misjudgement. And

this judgment perhaps, but he probably didn't think they House of

Lords would try and supplant the Labour Party as Her Majesty's

opposition, which it effectively had to do because the Labour Party has

abdicated from that role. Toby, one issue here, this is not coming into

effect until April, there was plenty of time to take it through. You

probably would have tried to have an end a Finance Bill. That is my job.

Frank Field motion on Thursday only asks the Government to reconsider

the impact, and that is what they have agreed to do in the Autumn

Statement, so why ask them to do something they have agreed to do?

They have not said anything specific. Stage it, is what I am

asking. You will find a number of Tory MPs standing up in that debate

talking about the sort of thing they want to see, it should be productive

for a Government. It seems needlessly rebellious given that the

Chancellor has conceded and will reconsider the impact of the changes

on the low paid in the Autumn Statement. This is the House of

Commons, it is our job to represent our constituents. Some of them will

lose quite a lot of money out of this, people who can't afford to, so

it is not just, yes, we will do something, it is what you are going

to do, what the detail is, what the grand strategy is. You will hear on

Thursday Tories and Labour, I suspect, all parties, we want to see

the deficit dealt with in this Parliament and there are ways to do

this which don't have that effect and that is the proper way to do it.

Toby, let me put a question to you, because in the end, George Osborne

and it seems you are blaming the Lords, calling it a constitutional

outrage, but actually, this is what a lot of Tory MPs felt, they had

stood up and made it very clear that they had a real problem with this

tax credit cuts because of the impact on their constituents. We

heard from David Willetts, even the Sun newspaper was criticising the

Government, so in the end, the Lords did the deed but it was some people

feel what a lot of people felt. If Conservative MPs felt they could not

support this particular statue statutory instrument, they had three

opportunities to vote against it, which is why it is outrageous that

the unelected chamber has rejected it. All bills are voted on three

times before they get to the House of Lords, it is another bogus

argument. The House of Lords spoke for the country yesterday and 60% of

people in Britain think George Osborne has got this wrong and we

should not be penalising hard-working people for working

hard, not balancing the books on their backs, which is why the House

of Lords was dead right to reject this and the constitutional crisis

is a total smoke screen. The House of Lords didn't straightforwardly

rejected, they just said let's see if they plan to ameliorate it impact

the first three years of its light, make the reforms to the tax credit

system but don't let them kicking for three years, effectively nearer

the election and have a greater penalty on the Conservatives. Would

George Osborne be wrong to lessen the impact and should he stick to

his guns? I think if he can find the way of meeting his deficit reduction

target, finding those savings in the welfare budget that his party said

they would find... And ameliorate the impact on those hardest hit, of

course, but it is easier said than done. Do you think politically he

should just stay firm, which is what some people are advising? It depends

what you mean by state firm. He has already said he is going to look at

way of ameliorating the impact on the hardest hit in the Autumn

Statement and I don't suppose they will introduce another statutory

instrument or include these measures in the Finance Bill until after the

Autumn Statement. Which is the spot academics smart way to do it but the

true that the moment is we don't know -- the smart way to do. The

Treasury have never publish the interim figures and I have asked

them several times. If we have those numbers, we can make a proper

judgment and at the moment, we can't. There is one thing from a

timing point of view and I will come to you in a moment, want ministers

to delay the tax credit cuts or put in some sort of transitional stage.

Over three years or in three years' time, that will be a year until the

next General Election which will be then when the next cuts coming, it

will be very difficult your party... I don't read the motion that way, I

read it as changing year by year. In other words, each time the national

minimum wage or the living wage goes up, you cut back on tax credits a

bit more. That is why it is complex, but it is year by year, you can have

a changing every year, that is one of the difficulties, but that

doesn't put it all in for the General Election. John McDonnell

said Labour would not make political capital out of this if George

Osborne changed his mind. So we are not going to hear any criticism or

mocking from the Labour Party since George Osborne has said he is going

to do something about it? All you are going to hear from me is

delighted that George Osborne has effectively admitted that he does

need to revisit these plans, that it is going to hit the hard-working

people of this country much harder than people had appreciated, that

George Osborne and David Cameron lied to the British public when they

said they weren't going to do this before the last election. That is

why the House of Lords felt so strongly that they were able to make

this statement. Is that making political capital out of it in the

way the John McDonnell said he wouldn't? I am stating the truth.

When a Prime Minister says on network television that he wasn't

going to do something and then does it the other side... You are shaking

your head. He was talking about child benefit. No, child tax

credits. Did he lie? Do not talk over each other. David Davis, did he

live? I don't think so, one of the problems was the Government started

eliminating too many things and left a very small number of things to

cut, that is where we ended up, but... Like pensions? I would prefer

him to cut are things like free travel for pensioners. A lot of

pensioners these days are quite well. We will have this conversation

another time. Now the Mayor of London Boris

Johnson not with George Osborne, his rival

for the Conservative leadership - And he resisted the opportunity to

have a sly dig at the Chancellor when he was asked about

the tax credits defeat. I think George Osborne is absolutely

right to want to reform a system that basically subsidises

huge corporations, to the tune of billions

of pounds of taxpayers' money. He is right to want

to reform a system because what happens is they get

their tax credits withdrawn as soon as they earn just a little

bit more, and I think it is wrong of the House

of Lords to get in the way of the sovereign expression

of the will of Parliament. We're joined now by the

Conservative MP Oliver Dowden, who, before the election, was one

of David Cameron's closest advisors Welcome back. You may have heard

David Davis talking about what he thinks the Chancellor should do,

what do you think he is going to do to mitigate the impact of these

cuts? I think the Chancellor has been very clear that first of all we

need to stick with this overall direction of tax credit reform. We

have to continue to reduce the deficit, both of which we promised

during the election campaign. We promised to cut ?12 billion worth

from welfare and get into a surplus but he has accepted there is a need

appropriate time to do that is but he has accepted there is a need

the Autumn Statement. You said he has been listening but he only acted

after the defeat last night. It is interesting, this discussion.

The measure was approved three times by the House of Commons than we had

the extraordinary spectre of the Liberal Democrats, remember

the extraordinary spectre of the fought against them in the election

campaign, won the argument on welfare, they were reduced to eight

MPs then welfare, they were reduced to eight

legitimacy to use their welfare, they were reduced to eight

the House of Commons to welfare, they were reduced to eight

something introduced by a majority welfare, they were reduced to eight

Government which was promised and clearly signalled

Government which was promised and campaign. Are you

Government which was promised and MPs were completely happy with the

tax credit proposals MPs were completely happy with the

opposition from people, from David MPs were completely happy with the

Davis to David Willets, two backbench MPs and the Sun newspaper,

that there backbench MPs and the Sun newspaper,

your own site? Of course there was reservation to

your own site? Of course there was properly debated in the House of

Commons. We debated and opposition Day motion, the points were

considered, but the considered view of the elected representatives,

people who were elected by the electorate to go and represent them

on matters of tax and spending, decided by a majority to endorse it

and then unelected peers representing two parties, brand to

be defeated in the last election chose to overturn it, and it is

he giving you? The Chancellor has he giving you? The Chancellor has

said all along he will listen, but he will not give in... Rightly or

wrongly he has been forced to give in, he has pretty much accepted

that. You will have to wait and see what he says in the Autumn

Statement. He has been clear that we have a problem here, and the problem

is that people on low pay have been paying tax on the minimum wage,

having it recycled through the welfare system and then used to

top-up their wages. So why doesn't he stick to his guns and take on the

House of Lords? I think you will find he is sticking to his guns, to

the principle that we have to reform tax credits. We cannot have this

crazy situation where spending has gone from ?6 billion to ?30 billion.

We need to deal with it and I think you will find he will deal with it.

He said he would not budge and David Cameron said, we think the changes

we have put forward are right, higher pay and lower taxes, but we

-- but he has accepted they have to do something so he is, to some

extent, not on the broad principle, going to have to give in and fold in

what he wanted to do because of the defeats. Again, you made the point,

which is that on tax credits we have a clear programme for reform. There

are questions about the transition which the Chancellor has said he

will address but on the fundamental principle, we promised to fight ?12

billion of savings from welfare, ?4 billion from tax credits, we have

defined it from there because if we do not it will be cuts to spending

on health, maybe high taxes or Labour's position, which seems to be

carrying on borrowing forever. I don't think you will find the

Chancellor would embrace that. It was as a result of pressure put on

him, it seems he made a mistake in the light of what has happened. It

is a bruising defeat for the Chancellor personally, isn't it? As

I said, it is a defeat from the unelected house, the House of

Commons, the elected representatives, have endorsed him

on three occasions. This is a major problem that the unelected house is

designed to overturn us on a measure of tax and spend, going back to

principles of no taxation without representation. That is why the

problem comes from. If those unelected Labour and Liberal

Democrat peers had not voted against the Government, this would be law

now. But it is a bruising defeat all the same. He had a programme, he was

confident about it, he said he would not change, the Treasury were public

consistently in saying they would push ahead with this despite

resistance before last night from within the party, and he is having

to change tack. At a personal level, you know him, this is difficult for

him? Nobody wants to lose a vote in parliament, and that is what has

happened. As I said, it is a vote in the Lords, but I think you will find

the Chancellor remains absolutely committed to what we promised in our

election manifesto, which is to move from a low wage, high tax, high

welfare economy to a high wage, lower tax and lower welfare economy,

and the Chancellor will absolutely stick to that, and I would imagine

he is more determined than ever, seeing the way in which unelected

members of the House of Lords... Was he always intending to make changes

in the Autumn Statement? The Chancellor has said all along he

will listen to people and the appropriate moment to take on board

those concerns is the Autumn Statement. So he always had it in

mind that he would perhaps spend some money somewhere, ease the

transition to these tax credit cuts in the Autumn Statement? He, in your

mind, had already decided he would do that? Members of parliament

raised somebody to make concerned about transition measures. The

Chancellor said all along he would listen to those concerns, and I

think he will bring forward measures to deal with that. Right, do you

think, then, that he should have come out himself to say that more

clearly? He sent out his emissary is, if you like, at the weekend, we

heard from Nicky Morgan talking about this, would it have been

better if George Osborne himself had stood up and said, I am going to do

something? You saw him speaking in the house today... Know, before. The

House of Lords seemed pretty determined to abuse their powers to

frustrate the Government willy-nilly. There would not have

been any different if George had come out. We will never know, of

course, but do you think it would have been better for Tory MPs to

have heard George Osborne stand up and say, I will deal with this in

the Autumn Statement? I think we will see on Thursday, won't we? We

will see what happens with Frank Field's motion on Thursday. I think

it is unlikely. On that listening point, I remember being at the 1922

committee where he stood in front of Conservative MPs last week and said

he was listening so it is not true to say he has not signalled he will

listen. Although that was not public, it was a private meeting.

What do you think this does to his leadership ambition? David Cameron,

I'm glad to say, has said he will remain Prime Minister until the

end... We all know what he has spoken about. Does it damage it for

him? What people will see is a Chancellor that is determined to

deliver on promises to reform welfare, and if we don't give it

now, we have rapid growth in wages, falling unemployment, and national

live in wage, future generations will not thank us for not grasping

the nettle of welfare reform. The Chancellor will grasp that metal and

people will thank him for it. The elections for the new leader of the

Conservative party are a very long way off. That is true. Thank you.

The question for today is, which celebrity peer was flown in

from New York to vote in last night's debate?

Was it Alan sugar, Julian Fellowes, Fluellen Benjamin or Andrew Lloyd

Webber? At the end of the show, Toby will

give us the correct answer. Now, the Government has said that

there are clear constitutional issues that they say will

"need to be dealt with" after the series of votes in the Lords last

night which included two defeats. The first vote last night was on the

Lib Dems' fatal motion rejecting the This was won comfortably by the

Government - just 99 voted in favour Next was an amendment proposed

by a crossbench peer, Baroness Meacher, to delay the cuts and send

the proposals back to the Commons On this, the Government suffered

its first defeat with the motion Finally,

peers voted on Labour's amendment to stop the cuts until the Government

designs a compensation scheme for This motion was also passed -

the Government losing narrowly with 289 votes for the motion

and 272 against. The Conservatives are well short

of a majority in the House of Lords with just 249 peers out

of a total of 816. The Lords have been increasingly

rebellious in recent years - the coalition Government suffered

almost 100 defeats in the Lords And the new Conservative Government

has already been defeated 19 times in the Lords in the five months

since the general election. But this is the first time

in 100 years that the second Chamber has voted down a financial package

backed by the Commons. Here's a taste of yesterday's debate

in the House of Lords. I have been to see the Chancellor

this morning at Number 11. And I can confirm that he would

listen very carefully were the House ..in the way that it is precedented

for us to do so. My motion clearly leaves the matter

in the hands of the elected House. The justification for

a delay is that the House of Commons will have a full-day debate on

these issues, as I said, on I understand that dozens

of Conservative backbenchers are urging the Chancellor to adjust

the tax credit reforms to protect Yes, there have been three votes

on tax credits in the House of Commons won by the Government, but

Conservative MPs, not me, say they did not have the information they

needed when they voted for the I hear that many

of them are now livid about this. The fact is there was a vote in

the other place last week, there was a clear majority and not a single

Conservative member voted in the The point is this was

a budgetary matter and budgetary matters are the prerogative of the

elected House, and that is a most This was designed to reduce

the budget deficit, which everybody agrees has to be

eliminated on all sides All those arguments pale

into insignificance when compared to the greater argument, the argument

that the general public, millions of people outside of this

House are considering today. That being statements given

during the course of the And, in particular, Mr Cameron,

who deliberately misled the British public, and the British public would

regard what he said now as a lie. It's not a constitutional crisis,

that is a fig leaf possibly disguising tensions in the Commons

between members of the Government. My Lords, we can be supportive of

the Government and give them what they did not ask for, financial

privilege, or we can be supportive instead of those three million

families facing letters at Christmas telling them on average they will

lose up to around ?1,300 a year. I say to the Government that these

proposals are morally indefensible. OTHER MEMBERS:

Hear, hear. It is clear to me

and I believe to very many others that these proposals blatantly

threaten damage to the lives A flavour of last night's debate

in the Lords Vernon Bognador, is talk of a

Paul Tyler Vernon Bognador, is talk of a

constitutional crisis over Vernon Bognador, is talk of a

problems, firstly with the Lords rejecting a financial

problems, firstly with the Lords which, as you said a few moments

ago, which, as you said a few moments

years. But secondly the question over whether the fact Labour and

Liberal Democrat peers outnumber the Conservatives enabled the Lords to

become no longer a revising chamber but an opposition chamber, which is

not appropriate for an unelected house. It is not appropriate, you

have changed what the basic role of the House of Lords is? The chance

bungled this. If he wanted to keep it as a financial measure he could

have, as David Davis said a few minutes ago here, he could have

amended the Finance Bill, which minutes ago here, he could have

would have remained firmly in the Commons, or introduce a tax credit

Amendment Bill, and it was made clear during our debate yesterday.

What he did was try to get a short cut to put it into secondary

legislation, which we had every right in the House of Lords,

repeated endlessly, it does not matter what the subject matter is,

we have every right to vote down and SI. How do you argue with that? It

is not unlawful for the Lords to reject regulations but they do it

rarely because the Parliament act, which restrict the powers of the

Lords, does not apply to regulations. When it was passed in

1911 there was very little secondary regulation. Precisely because the

Lords have this supreme power in regulations, they ought to use it as

an unelected chamber very, very rarely. It is a kind of nuclear

option and in fact, until recently, the 1960s, the Lord never rejected a

regulation, and since then very, very sparingly, and it makes it even

more serious when it is a financial matter on which the privilege of the

Commons is absolute. In terms of reviewing the Lords, this rapid

review that is being used by the Government, what are the options

available? There is talk of swamping the Lords of Conservative peers but

I think that would be foolish, especially when the Government is

thinking about reducing the size of the House of Commons. It would be

odd to reduce the elected chamber and increased the unelected

chamber! The right thing would be to put the convention into statutory

law so things were precluded -- so the Lords were precluded by law from

doing what they did last night. Do you support that and agree it would

not be a good look to swamp the House of Lords with 100, 150 Tory

peers to end the fact they do not have a majority?

It is the nuclear option. The difficulty the Government faces is

if it decides in to pass primary legislation to limit the Lords'

ability to delay legislation, to include statutory instruments, then

the Lords could then vote against that, they could use the Labour and

Lib Dem majority to vote against it and the Government would have to

invoke the Parliament act and the whole thing could take two years and

in the meantime, the Government's legislative programme for which it

has won a clear mandate, would be frustrated by the unelected chamber.

So do you think drastic action should be taken? I think it remains

to be seen. The Lords, it is not just what they did yesterday, last

week they breached the Salisbury Convention as well when they

rejected the proposal to end subsidies for onshore wind farms

which, again, was unprecedented. That is nonsense. The Salisbury

Convention was killed off in 2006. The joint committee said it was

obsolete and boathouses agreed. We keep hearing about the unelected

Lords. The coalition Government brought forward a Bill to deal with

this issue and as killing bag of loot Ken Clarke has said, the

obvious thing to do is, we have heard this, unelected chamber,

unelected chamber, Ken Clarke says the 2012 Bill, which has a large

majority in the House of Commons but was stymied by a combination of

Labour and Tory rebels... So are you effectively admitting you are taking

advantage of the situation to advance a Lib Dem proposal that was

rejected in the last parliament? It wasn't the Lib Dem proposal, it was

the coalition Government, supported by the Prime Minister and the

Chancellor. At the insistence of Nick Clegg. Not at all, it was in

the Conservative manifesto. We ought to be having a review of the

relationship between the two houses. This particular issue, as I

have just explained, is because entirely the Chancellor is trying to

take a short cut. OK. But we should use the opportunity to think better

about the relationship. Until the House of Lords becomes an elected

chamber, if that is what you want, how can you justify something that

was clearly in the manifesto, something like abolishing the

onshore wind farms. That is not the issue, the issue was

is it important that the House of Lords as the House of Commons to

think again, which is critical to the Constitution. The whole idea of

having two Houses of Parliament is they should be a second look on

issues of this sort. Is it an issue that Tory majority governments are

not necessarily used to having a case where they are not the majority

in the House of Lords? I understand that during Tony Blair's time, there

were quite a lot of the beats and there certainly have been fatal

motions in the past to kill of legislation is -- quite a lot of

defeats, but this is the real politic of having two houses on the

right to flex their muscles. Let's have a look... Let's forget about

what it is for, that is how it works. The Conservatives were very

careful not to abuse it when there was a Labour Government in order to

not undermine the validity of the House of Lords but Labour and Lib

Dems have not been like that. Because we have independent members

of the House of Lords who are not members of any party, one of the

successful amendments was a move by a crossbencher, Lady Meacher. But

your leader Tim Barron has described the Lords as wholly undemocratic you

are not democratically accountable, as you have said yourself, you want

an elected chamber, but you are frustrating the will of an elected

Government. That in itself appears hypocritical at the very least. It

is the fact is political life, that is our job, what is the point of

having a second house? With these particular responsibilities, we are

supposed to be there to look at these issues were now put before us.

In the Chancellor did not want that, he had other routes he could

take and he bungled it. Are you overstepping the mark and

overreaching yourselves and in the end, you will bring about a head-on

collision with the Commons? It will be extremely important that Mr

Cameron, who has kept his counsel on what would be the effective way to

deal with this issue, how he will come forward with proposals for the

long-term reform at the House of Lords. Any tinkering would be absurd

at this stage, we have to do what they themselves committed themselves

to into elections, and that was wholesale reform of the House of

Lords. Do you agree with that? I think Paul Tyler is right that this

raises the whole issue between the House of Commons and the Lords and

whether we should have an elected House of Lords. An elected House of

Lords would have powers that the unelected House of Lords doesn't

have but that would not solve the constitutional problems and could

worsen them. In Australia, you had a huge constitutional crisis between

the elected Senate and the elected lower house in 1975 because the

elected Senate refused to give the Government funds, and it ended very

controversially when the Governor general sacked the Prime Minister.

The question is, do we want these kinds of conflicts here and on what

basis would the upper house be elected? Liberal Democrats say it

would be on a federal basis but Britain isn't really a federal

state. We have parliaments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

but not in England. Do you think the Government has the appetite for

that, again, the sort of programme of reform to the Lords? I think the

likeliest way in which they will deal with these troublesome Lords is

to introduce a bill in which they limit the powers of the Lords even

further and of the Lords reject that... You can understand why

because it wasn't just yesterday, there have been other examples and

you are putting forward another fatal motion this evening which

kills off the legislation. We asked -- we are asked specifically by

Parliament specifically to do so. It is different to last night, it is

our job to do this by law, in statute. Is that true because this

is to do with individual electoral registration and there is a fatal

motion on cuts to asylum seeker benefits. Is it the right of the

unelected house to do this? The Lords can survive only if it

exercises a sense of self restraint. It can ask the Government to think

again, that is absolutely right. But if they determined Government wants

to proceed, the Lords has to give way, it shouldn't go beyond that.

There is a great danger I believe now that the Labour and Liberal

Democrat peer are using it as a chamber of opposition, having lost

the election, trying to frustrate Government policy through the upper

house. What do you say to that? That is what it will look like, eight

MPs, no standing in the House of Commons in terms of exerting

opposition, this is where you can do it? The practical politics is it is

our job. Are you doing it with such relish because you can? No, I was

involved with the House of Lords before this Government and we have

had to do this job regularly, but with a coalition Government and

previously. I think you can look forward to more of those. You are

saying you have just asked the Government to think again and if it

does and comes back with more of the proposal to reform it, will you

accept it? I don't think it will come to it, because it will be dealt

with with some amendment to some specific bill. Coming back to the

finance aspect, the Treasury were briefing last week that the House of

Lords should be suspended. Frankly, the last person who tried to stop

the House of parliament doing its job was King Charles I. I think a

little respect for history would show it wasn't a clever thing to do,

he lost his head. That wasn't reasoned, of course, but thank you

very much for that slightly ominous N.

Jeremy Corbyn has struck a deal with the Scottish Labour

leader, Kezia Dugdale, allowing the party in Scotland more autonomy.

It's a controversial plan to turn around

the party's fortunes in Scotland after they lost all but one of their

Kezia Dugdale addressed Labour MPs at their weekly meeting

in the Commons last night, and our Scotland political correspondent

What did they say? Well, she certainly got polite applause at the

beginning and the end of the address. There were some questions

during get from MPs that were concerned that autonomy of the

Scottish Labour Party may mean that the United Labour Party, the

Unionist Labour Party, comes to an end. She says that is not the case

and this is about devolution and not a division of the UK party. There

were also questions from some MPs about the policy diversions that

this may mean in future, for instance on issues like defence, the

nuclear deterrent, for one, and taxation, which is another issue

which may it, in the end, mean that Scotland and the rest of the UK

Labour Party have different policy positions. Now, the MPs that emerged

from the meeting did not seem entirely convinced that they had

heard everything that they needed to about this, but Kezia Dugdale's

pitch to them was that if Labour's fortunes are to be turned around in

Scotland in time for next May's Scottish elections, she needs more

autonomy for the party and she needs to be able to set policy positions

to decide on candidates and not be a branch office of London, which, of

course, one of her predecessors accused the party of being. If the

changes are to go ahead, how would it

changes are to go ahead, how would terms of setting up, if you

changes are to go ahead, how would rest of the UK's

changes are to go ahead, how would Dugdale, I think, will argue it is

not a Dugdale, I think, will argue it is

a devolution of the party, it wouldn't be completely independent,

she says, but it would have control over its affairs over policy

positions, that it would be able to depart actively to decide at Party

Conference, positions that may be different to a UK party. She says we

will have to go to the NEC, the Scottish executive, and a special

conference before it is approved, but she signed the deal with Jeremy

Corbyn, a statement of intent and they say that is the road down which

they think they want to go, despite the concerns of some in the party.

Tim, thank you. And the Scottish Labour Leader,

Kezia Dugdale, Kezia Dugdale, just listening to

that, you want more autonomy for the Labour Party in Scotland. Has that

been prompted by the Labour Party swapping one North London leader for

another? No, I would say it has been caused by the fact that we lost all

but one of our seeds in the General Election and it is my job as new

leader here in Scotland with a huge mandate to turn around the fortunes

of my party to listen to that very strong message the people of

Scotland sent us. There is a perception, fair or otherwise, that

were too long the Scottish Labour Party was run for London by

Westminster and it simply has to change. That is why I have made the

case of a more autonomous Scottish Labour Party, said decisions around

policy, directions we take, are made here in Scotland by me and my team

and I think that is what voters in Scotland would act rapidly to

expect. I had taken it to the Labour Parliamentary party to say this is

not an Independent Labour Party, I didn't spend two and a half years to

campaign for a no vote in independence referendum for a

separate party, this is about devolution, the Labour Party

devolving power within its own structures and I think it is high

time we took up that opportunity. We will come up to some of the policy

decisions that you might have to go your separate ways on, but sticking

with Jeremy Corbyn, he has been the MP for Islington North since the

early 1980s. You would accept he is hardly going to be any more popular

in Scotland than Ed Miliband was, he doesn't really have any connection

to Scottish Labour, does he? I think you have made a very rational

judgment about Jeremy Corbyn. Both Jeremy and I want our respective

leadership contests, the party membership in Scotland is on the

up, we now stand at 30,000... Do think that as a result of Jeremy

Corbyn? It is a result of both was putting forward radical suggestions

to change the fortunes of our party and I look forward to working with

him. The reality is I have to set out a different pattern here in

Scotland to determine the Pappas and the Scottish interest and it is

about strengthening the UK Labour Party. Tim Reid referred to the

strong difference between something that is an act of devolution and

something viewed as division. This is entirely about the principle of

devolution, the idea of getting more power into Scotland so we can

determine our own fortunes. Do you agree with your predecessor Joanne

Lamont that Scottish Labour has in the past been treated like a branch

office? As I said in my opening remarks, there is no doubt that that

is a very strong perception people have in Scotland. It is not about

what politicians thing, it is what is happening on the doorsteps in

communities around the country. We were sent a thumping message in May,

we have to get that message, we have to reform and renew our party and I

won the leadership election here with 72% of the boat with a mandate

to do exactly this, to make a more autonomous Scottish Labour Party --

of the vote. But I also promised to re-democratise the party and we go

into the conference this weekend with a lively programme to do things

differently and I am excited about that. I am also excited to lay out

my radical platform for how I intend to transform this country. Let's

talk about policy issues, what happens when you disagree with

Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell on a policy over a non-devolved issue.

On Trident, for example? What happens? I have a mandate from the

party membership here to re-democratise our conference and I

am welcoming the prospect that there might be a debate on Trident this

weekend. What happens if you end up with two different policies question

mark come next election, voters are a Scottish MP are faced with a

Labour candidate that will be standing for a party with two

different positions on a key policy, how does that work? I do understand

this question and I have faced this over the last few days. You are

focusing on a hypothetical which we may face bore or five years down the

line but let me answer it specifically. We are going to create

the space for our party membership to have a debate on this particular

issue this weekend. Should it be the case that in five years' time,

hypothetically, that we are in a different position to the rest of

the UK party then like many other countries across Europe that operate

the federal type solution, there will be a process for working

through it. It is not new in terms of being a concept. It is new for

the Labour Party. I signed the statement of intent with Jeremy

Corbyn yesterday about the direction of travel, the relationship between

the Scottish Labour Party and the UK Labour Party. There is now, I have,

prospect for debate across the whole of the movement about what might

happen in Wales, across England and other parts of the country. The end

point of this would be next year's Party Conference, when any real

changes might take place, that is 11 months where various stakeholders,

MPs, MSP is, party members, unions, can come to the fore and talk about

how we might want to resolve the rare occasions where positions might

be conflicted. You say they are rare occasions and

you have time, which is true, but did you put pressure on Jeremy

Corbyn and John McDonald to change the fiscal charter? I spoke to them

and put forward my views on that. I don't profess to save that my view

was the thing that made them change their minds. I paraphrase, but you

say something like if they did not change their mind it would be

explosive as far as you are concerned in Scotland and the SNP

would make a? I did not use those words. I made the case about strong

anti-austerity measures. That it was not their position, was that? A few

machinations around that and it wasn't exclusive to the Labour

Party, but let me put it this way, I have regular conversations with

colleagues and friends across the Labour movement, I am in direct

contact with Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson, the rest of the team, all

the time. We are part of one movement, we are determined to turn

around the fortunes of the Scottish Labour Party and build a Labour

Party fit for the future. It is a massive opportunity. The principle

of devolution must apply. You say there are rare instances, which

areas of policy do you think you will need the freedom to disagree

with the National party? Look at the example that we will face in the

next few weeks around tax credit and welfare reform. Soon we will know

which of those powers are coming to the Scottish parliament but I would

like the position to set out those new powers and design our welfare

system and security system in Scotland that protects the people in

Scotland based on their needs. I will have the freedom to do that, it

is a good thing. But when you disagree with the leader of the

Westminster party, how will Scottish leaders vote in parliament? This is

an 11 month process, we will look at how to work through things when

there is complete. But the principle is sound, it is fundamentally about

devolution. The Labour Party has had different positions on education for

16 or more years. These are devolved issues, it is really where these

things are... But the principle is the same. It is different with a

non-devolved issue. Looking at your predecessors as leader of Scottish

Labour, Wendy Alexander, Johann Lamont, Jim Murphy, they presided

over the party during a period of decline. What makes you different? I

understand how big a task there is ahead. I was not unaware of that

when I put my name forward for the job, but I love my party and I

believe it has a bright future. The values of the Labour Party are as

relevant now as they have ever been. The challenges and

opportunities of the future can be realised and that is why I put my

name forward, because I want to turn around the fortunes of my party. I

have worked with a number of Labour leaders at close quarters, I have

seen these events close hand and have learned from that. All of those

people you name I would still call friends and close colleagues who

provide me with advice, and I know I am not alone, I have a strong team

of MSPs in the Parliament, a growing movement of party members and

supporters across the country who believe in the party and our values

and beliefs we have the answers to nationalism and will set out those

bright ideas for the future this coming weekend at the party

conference. I am upbeat and optimistic about my party's future.

Isn't it the reality that voters in Scotland, having experienced

devolution, see the SNP at far more effective at bashing the Westminster

Government and getting more the Labour and will continue to vote in

the SNP in Scotland and, well, differently down in Westminster,

obviously, but that will be the situation? What a travesty to assume

the one purpose of the SNP is to bash the Government in Westminster.

We sit in an incredibly powerful parliament just 500 metres from

where I am sitting now. A ?30 billion budget, powers over health,

education, welfare powers, tax powers, powers to transform the life

chances of people the length and breadth of book and treat and after

eight years of the SNP Government the gap in other schools between the

richest and poorest pupils is the widest it has ever been. A flagship

hospital in Scotland where one in four people which more than four

hours to be seen in A The record of the SNP Government has to be

exposed and understood across the United Kingdom, it is about far more

than Westminster obedience. Kezia Dugdale, thank you.

The problem that the Corbyn fans have is they said during his

campaign that the reason Labour fared so badly in Scotland in May is

because they did not embrace the same anti-austerity politics that

the SNP did. Actually, now that Corbyn is leader, it does not look

like Labour will fare any better in the Scottish regional elections next

year. Well, we will have to see. The Tories don't really have anything

either. It looks like Labour will wipe out, Corbyn will make no

difference. To me, it feels like advanced damage control, we are

intending to devolve power to the Labour Party in Scotland, let Kezia

lead that, it is not our fault. The Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn

isn't short of critics - in the right-wing press, in the

left-wing press, in the Conservative And now

he's got some in the Middle East. the Ministry of Justice scrapped

a ?6 million deal to provide prison Here's the message Jeremy Corbyn

delivered to David Cameron during ..threatened

with the death penalty for taking part in a demonstration

at the age of 17 and, while you're about it, terminate that bid made by

our Ministry of Justice to provide prison services for Saudi Arabia,

which would be required to carry out the sentence that would be put

down on Ali Mohammed al-Nimr. Although many might agree with

Mr Corbyn, is it unwise to upset one Middle East? Conservative MP Alan

Duncan think so, but journalist James Bloodworth says we should not

be shy about human rights. They join me now.

Did Jeremy Corbyn influence the Prime Minister's decision to cancel

the present contract? Prime Minister's decision to cancel

I do think so but I Prime Minister's decision to cancel

stuck with the contract because I think if we can be

stuck with the contract because I reforming their present it is a good

thing. We had someone who was supposedly going to be lashed, I

don't think it was going to happen but that is what our local headlines

said, and if we were part of it we would be in a better position to

influence the judicial decisions. The bigger issue, though, is that

the whole of the Middle East is a mess and if you just have this

megaphone self-righteousness you risk making it messier, and the

Saudi regime is far more moderate than their own people, and if you

want to bin the regime and replace it with a sort of non-democratic

Isis all over Saudi Arabia, you would very, very quickly regret

having done that. Do you think it risks making it messier, the

situation of relations with Saudi? It depends how far you go. We should

not advocate overthrowing the Government in Saudi Arabia but I

would like to see less of the obsequious treatment of the Saudi

royal family by the Government. We had to be half flying of the British

flag when King Abdullah passed away. Saudi Arabia is the largest arms

market for British arms companies. I think Jeremy Corbyn is right to draw

attention to that. But at the same time I think he has his own problem

with a lack of consistency in that he stands on platforms with outfits

supported by the Iranian Government, and is also soft on Putin's Russia,

so it is about consistency. Sticking with Saudi Arabia, you say this

megaphone politics is not anything that could prevent the abuse of

human rights, all the lashings of a young boy, or a grandfather. Isn't

anything that stops that a good thing? I'm not saying one should not

talk about it, discuss it, tell them what you think in private. All I'm

saying is that simplistic grandstanding like we heard from

Jeremy Corbyn, let's intervene to stop the lashing, is total fantasy.

What you have got to be here is realistic, you have to be realistic

about the nature of resumes in that part of the world, their history,

what you can and cannot change, and what would replace what is there now

if there were a vacuum that needed to be filled. Aren't you tiptoeing

around the regime here, somewhat? No, you need a lot of understanding

about the nature of Saudi society, the people themselves but also the

regime, where they rule with a measure of consent in the sense that

if they don't have collected approval by quickly replaced. There

is quite a lot going on now within the regime which we will not know

about which is straining a lot of the stability we are seeing. What

sort of relationship should we have with Saudi Arabia? I have many of

the same reservations as James about human rights abuses in Saudi Arabia,

the fact women are not allowed to drive, bloggers are routinely

prosecuted, in some cases flogged and so forth, but the risks of

withdrawing from our relationship with Saudi Arabia is that we lose

any possible positive influence we might have, and I think there

should, qualified response is better -- Margaret and I think a measured,

qualified response. Was it right to drop the prison contract? I think it

was, considering how unjust it is. People would have read it as us, if

you like, being involved, even at a distance, to some of the abuses that

go on in the presence? It is a difficult decision of whether to

become involved or not with a regime like that. When I was a minister we

try to have a lot of processes with regimes like that, you could say,

don't go near them because it is a messy process, or try to make it

better. It is a difficult moral call, and absolutism in these

issues, and I agree with Toby, is actually a bad position to hold.

James, would things change dramatically under a Jeremy Corbyn

leadership? I think so. If he does win, which is unlikely at this

point, if he does win a general election things would change, but I

think the danger is it would go to buy the other way, so you would lose

cooperation with Saudi Arabia on things like Bashar al-Assad, on

terrorism, but Jeremy would be too soft on countries like Iran and

Russia, which is another side of the human rights abuse coin, I think.

You have worked in oil producing countries in the past, Saudi Arabia

is the biggest, does it come back to oil and money? Oil if it viable

commodity, it does not matter what we say to Saudi Arabia, if prices go

up and down it is the same for everybody so there is no direct

benefit that comes from talking about oil with Saudi Arabia, no

special flow or supply at a special price. It is equal misery. So what

is the point of flattering them and keeping them onside? The point is

the Middle East matters to us. Of course oil does matter, try doing

without it! But for us to be in the mix with golf countries and

roundabout, like Yemen and the nearer Middle East with Palestine

and Israel, it is essential, I think, that we are a respected voice

in the mix, and if we withdraw by saying, you are all bad, Little

Britain becomes even smaller. Does it make a difference on terrorism? I

think it does, we are not privy to all the information, but at the same

time Saudi Arabia spreads messages across the world... I have to

quickly get to the quiz. Can you remember the question?

The question was, which celebrity peer was flown in from New York

Andrew Lloyd Webber. It was. I love the idea of him being flown in all

the way from New York, it has a sort of glamour about it. People have

criticised him, saying he has gone to great lengths to vote for the tax

credit cuts, but the Conservatives had a whip in operation, they had to

do that in response to the whipping of the Lib Dem and Labour peers. You

got it in! That is it from us, goodbye!