Tag Archives: archy kirkwood

Lib Dem Lords will try and kill off Tory tax credit cuts as Farron decries Osborne’s “Poll Tax”

By The Voice | Tue 20th October 2015 - 9:30 pm

George Osborne could be told to think again on tax credits by the House of Lords next week if a “regret motion” co-sponsored by Lib Dem peer Archy Kirkwood is successful.

Party leader Tim Farron has asked all Lib Dem peers to support it, making a government defeat possible.According to the Guardian, though, some Labour peers might get the collywobbles about challenging a government’s financial bill. According to the Guardian:

By custom and practice, the peers do not challenge financial measures, but Farron has been arguing that the specific tax credits measure was not in the Conservative party manifesto and was even specifically denied by David Cameron in a leaders’ TV election debate, after the Guardian revealed a document leaked by the Lib Dems showing that the government had been considering cuts to tax credits.

This has also attracted coverage in the Express and Star, Sky News and the Evening Standard.

Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged tax credits and tim faron | 23 Comments

14 Liberal Democrat rebels help defeat housing benefit cuts in the House of Lords

By Mark Pack | Wed 14th December 2011 - 9:26 pm

Fourteen Liberal Democrat peers, including the former party Chief Whip Archy Kirkwood and the former interim Chief Executive Ben Stoneham, joined a successful rebellion in the House of Lords today. The vote, on part of the Welfare Reform Bill, was over the proposal to cut housing benefit payments from people who have spare bedrooms in their property.

The peers voted to restrict these cuts to people who have two or more spare bedrooms, excluding the controversial category of people with one spare bedroom – which, under the rules as proposed, might in fact not have been that spare. Concerns had also …