What is the House of Lords for?

First off let's cut through some woolly thinking and explanations by commentators over whar happened in the Lords last Monday. Leaving aside the issue of what the Lords can and cannot do with statutory instruments, there are two limitations on the Lords that are relevant here. One is the Parliament Act of 1911 which forbids the Lords from blocking money matters undertaken by the Government. The other is the Salisbury Doctrine dating from the 1940s. This is an unwritten convention that forbids the Lords from obstructing any measure that was contained in the governing party's last election manifesto. Now the most dramatic interpretation of what happened is that the Lords offended both these constitutional restrictions. A different view says they offended neither. Supporters of the former view argue that the proposed tax credit cuts are a money matter and that the Conservatives' manifesto commitment to reduce the budget deficit is being challenged here. Those who take the latter view suggest this was a welfare, not a money matter and that the Tories did not include tax credit cuts specifically in their 2015 manifesto. In other words the measure was fair game. The problem here is that there is no one to adjudicate. Both interpretations are compelling and could be supported. So we need a person or committee, along the lines of the US Rules Committee, that can say whether something is subject to the Parliament Act or the Salisbury Doctrine ( which should be enacted to clarify it). Not difficult really. More seriously, we need to ask questions about the role of the Lords. It comes down to this simple question. If the Lords does not have the power to delay a decision and ask the Commons and the Government to re-consider, what is it for? Osborne joked it might be abolished, but it should be if it is to have no meaningful powers. OK some peers do excellent work improving legislation at Report Stage, but it does not need over 800 of them to do this. It is incontrovertible to say that we cannot have key decisions like this made by people who are completely unaccountable, however well intentioned they may be.