The Article 50 Bill makes its way to the Upper House tomorrow

Following on from my previous post the debate and preliminaries will be full of hot air but unlikely to produce anything of real note. It is customary for the Lords to give an unopposed Second Reading to government legislation and with 178 peers currently signed up to speak it's possible they won't even have time to deliver a recorded vote in any case.

So what happens next? Well the Bill proceeds to the committee stage next week and it's then that the "cross-benchers" ( independents) in the Lords may cast some sway.

Says the BBC:

Watch the crossbenchers. The crossbench or independent peers are not a party - they have no agreed policies, still less a whip, and their main rule is that their members must carry no taint of party allegiance, which means no local membership, and no financial donations.

It follows that there is no crossbench line on Brexit, but the crossbenchers could well provide the swing vote on the key amendments to be debated at the bill's committee stage, a week after Second Reading.

So any indication that they are breaking in a particular direction will be significant. One key figure may be the super-lawyer, Lord Pannick, who led the legal team which forced the Government to introduce this Bill in the first place.

In debates on legal issues, in particular, he has been able to persuade the Lords' legion of retired judges and senior QCs to back his initiatives, and his name appears on an amendment from Labour's shadow Brexit spokesperson, Baroness Hayter, requiring prior Parliamentary approval for agreements with the European Union, which bears a considerable resemblance to the "Meaningful Vote" proposed by Labour in the Commons.

This morning on the BBC's Andrew Marr Show former Labour trade minister and now Lord Mandelson has urged peers to "reinstate" the protections to EU citizens into the bill in the coming weeks.

"The government used its majority to bulldoze the legislation through the House of Commons," he said. "I hope it won't be so successful in the House of Lords,"

"At the end of the day the House of Commons, as the elected chamber, will prevail but I hope the House of Lords will not throw in the towel early."

Like I said in my previous post expect lots of hot air but not a lot of end result. It's the small print at issue here, not the process itself. The algos may get hold of some of the rhetoric though and cause a wobble or two so some caution/forewarning is advised hence my posting.

House of Lords begin debating the Brexit Bill tomorrow ( Monday)