My Lords, let me be absolutely clear. Any of the amendments that have been put down today, with the exception of that in the name of the right reverend Prelate, would mean that this House has not approved a statutory instrument which the House of Commons has approved and
voted on three times. As I have already said, we would be challenging the primacy of the House of Commons on financial matters.
The right reverend Prelate’s amendment gives this House the opportunity to express its view in a way that accords with our conventions. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, made various specific references. I say to him and to the House as a whole that the parent Act from which this statutory instrument is derived, which was brought forward by the Labour Government, made clear that amendments to tax credits should be introduced via secondary legislation. We are following that procedure. Indeed, after the Tax Credits Act was passed, other amendments to it were brought forward in the last Parliament, while we were in coalition government, exactly in the way that was expected.
The key fact is that there are conventions that apply to secondary legislation. The noble Lord, Lord Tyler, is right to refer to the Joint Committee’s report. But in addition to what he quotes, that report also made it clear that,
“opposition parties should not use their numbers in the House of Lords to defeat an SI simply because they disagree with it”.
The key point I make to the noble Lord is that we are in an unprecedented situation, because the kind of primary legislation conventions that he refers to that allow the other House to enter into a dialogue with us just do not occur in secondary legislation.
We have a choice. We must choose whether to accept or reject this statutory instrument. Right now, it is absolutely clear that if we withhold our approval for this statutory instrument, we will be in direct conflict with the House of Commons.