IN ITS already-vulnerable position the government needs defeats, from whatever quarter they come, like a hole head.

But its sizeable and embarrassing setback in the Lords last night - where four former ministers joined Tory rebels to help peers reject divorce law proposals for couples' pensions - needs to be taken seriously for other than political reasons.

For two things strike us about this defeat - the innate justice of the reason for it and the value of the system which delivered it.

For, firstly, the Lords' insistence that divorced women should be allowed to share their husbands pensions' at the time of the break-up of the marriage, rather than on retirement, is only fair.

Why should a woman, who was once an equal partner in a union's arrangements for retired life, have to have her financial affairs entangled for years with those of her former partner and risk hardship in the interim?

That injustice is what peers voted against last night.

The Government made dire warnings of the extra cost and complexities of introducing the fairer system of pensions-splitting.

Now it ought to note how the scale and all-party nature of last night's defeat points to the legitimacy and rectitude of the peers' alternative pensions proposals.

It should, therefore, embrace them when the measure comes back to the Commons.

On top of this, we also see the merit of the House of Lords itself.

Though it may be ripe for reforms - such as, for instance, those a Labour government may have up its sleeve - its role as a barrier to the steam-roller tactics of the elective dictatorship that often emanate from the Commons cannot be denied.

Nor can its innate integrity.

For how else, but through an independent-minded second chamber, might we see, as we did last night, former ministers willing to inflict defeat on the government and going against party politics for the sake of what is right?

It is the sort of probity seen all too seldom in the lower house where toeing the party line, self interest and survival tactics so often prevail over vital issues.

The parliamentary institution that embraces these higher values might well be in need of reform, not least because of its unelected nature, but it would surely be unwise to dispense with it entirely.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.