The bill, introduced by Nick Clegg, was given its first reading on 27 June 2012. On 9 July 2012, the bill began to be debated. The Government also tried to introduce a programme motion, which would have limited the amount of time available to debate the bill. Labour called for more scrutiny of the bill and said it would vote against the programme motion, along with several Conservative MPs. On 10 July 2012, it became clear that the Government was going to lose the vote on the programme motion and it was withdrawn. At the vote that evening on whether to give the bill a second reading, 91 Conservative MPs voted against the three line whip, while 19 more abstained. On 6 August 2012, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced that the Government was abandoning the bill due to the opposition from Conservative backbench MPs, claiming that the Conservatives had "broken the coalition contract". However, David Cameron disputed this view, saying that the agreement contained no specific promise to enact reform of the House of Lords.