THE cunning No 10 plan to move the House of Lords 200 miles north from London to York did not appear to curry much favour with their lordships. Indeed, there was open ridicule at the idea. After the weekend's revelation that Boris Johnson - he of the £15 billion Stranraer to Larne bridge idea - was seriously considering moving the peer-heavy chamber en masse to Yorkshire, Labour's Lord Foulkes was prompted to get a minister to the dispatch box to demand what on earth was going on.
He asked Earl Howe, the Deputy Leader of the Lords, about the planned relocation but did not get much of a detailed answer.
The minister played a straight bat, noting how the Tory manifesto had promised a review of the Lords but the Government had not yet decided its scope; it might include looking at the upper chamber, then again, it might not.
Baroness Smith for Labour suggested - no names mentioned - the Government's big idea had come from the "same policy brain at No 10 that, desperate for a Brexit headline, came up with 'bung a bob for a Big Ben bong?'
"We know what happened to that," declared Lady Smith, adding: "Moving just one part of Parliament, albeit to the fantastic city of York, sounds more like the PM is as worried about Lords scrutiny as he is about Andrew Neil?"
The Rt Rev Stephen Cottrell, the next Archbishop of York, did not appear to be taking the idea that seriously either when he suggested: "Perhaps I could put on record that I will later this year have a large garden available in York where a suitable marquee could be erected for these purposes."
The archbishop-in-waiting added: "It seems to me to be a very serious threat to our democratic processes if we are not in the same place, so I would ask the minister…could we reconsider this one please
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