At the report stage of the EU Withdrawal Bill, the House of Lords has inflicted 14 major defeats on the government, with a further defeat at the third reading.

There have been calls from many quarters — including a petition signed by over 100,000 people — to abolish the Lords. We have been accused of trying to delay, frustrate and halt Brexit; we have been called ‘dinosaurs’ and ‘traitors in ermine’; and the leader of the Labour Party called the House of Lords an ‘undemocratic anachronism in the 21  century’, outlining plans to replace the Lords with an elected upper chamber.