Lord Strathclyde to lead review of House of Lords powers

Conservative peer Lord Strathclyde is to lead a review of the respective powers of the House of Commons and the House of Lords following the Government defeats over tax credit cuts.

An announcement from Downing Street said the review would examine "how to protect the ability of elected Governments to secure their business", and "how to secure the decisive role of the elected Commons in relation to its primacy on financial matters and secondary legislation".

It follows the two Government reversals in the Lords on Monday when the upper House stalled Chancellor George Osborne's plans to cut £4bn from the tax credits bill, at the expense of poorer working families.

Lord Strathclyde, a former minister and leader of the House of Lords, previously chaired a Conservative commission on Scottish devolution. He will be supported in his latest post by a small panel of experts. No timetable for its work has been disclosed.

Mr Osborne claimed that the voting down of the tax credits measure by "unelected Labour and Liberal peers... raises clear constitutional issues which we will deal with". The Lords had to "respect the constitutional convention that says the elected part of our Parliament votes on financial matters and the unelected part doesn't".

However Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell accused the Government of staging a "grudge match", and his party accused the Government of "intimidating" the House of Lords. Others have blamed the Government for attempting to make the changes by statutory instrument rather than a money bill, which the Lords would not be able to defeat.