Absent Conservative peers assist Labour in Lords votes

There were four votes in the House of Lords on Tuesday, two on the impact of the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) on charities, one on scrutiny of the CIL and one on the Local Transport Bill. None of these are front page news, but they are typical of the detailed work that the House of Lords does.

What caught my eye was the voting pattern.

Despite there being less than half as many Liberal Democrat peers (74) as Conservative, there were more Lib Dems in the voting lobby for three out of the four votes than Conservatives (and that’s not because there was an official line from the Conservatives to abstain).

On average only 14% of Conservative peers voted – just under 29 out of 199.

Only in one out of the four votes did more than 50 Conservative peers vote – which is the only one the Government was defeated on. On the other three votes, Labour got its way largely because Conservatives didn’t turn up to vote. Oops.