In a debate focusing on constitutional affairs in the government's legislative programme for the year ahead, Viscount Cranborne reiterated the Conservatives' intention to oppose removing the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in the Lords.

He insisted the government should first make clear what long-term reform to the composition of the upper chamber they had in mind before proceeding with the "first stage" removal of the hereditaries.

Opening the debate, Leader of the House Baroness Jay told hereditary peers the government was determined to press ahead with its plans to stop them taking part in parliament.

She said: "The status quo is simply unacceptable. It must be changed.

"Only then will it be possible to engage in constructive debate on the role, functions and composition of a fully reformed second chamber, taking account of the whole of our evolving constitutional settlement."

She added: "The Conservative Party has, in this house, an in-built majority of 3-1 over the government."

This, she said, had led to a situation where the Tories' block vote had been deployed to defeat the government more times in Labour's first session of parliament than during any session in the previous 18 years of Tory rule.

Lady Jay said the government would press ahead with the measure in a single self-contained reform not dependent on any further action.

A Royal Commission is to be appointed, she said, to look at the future of the House, and changes will be made to the way life peers are created, removing the prime minister's sole right of patronage.

She also confirmed that the government would re-introduce the European Parliamentary Elections Bill, after it was abandoned in the face of Tory-led opposition at the close of the last session of parliament.

'No vision'

Responding for the Opposition, Viscount Cranborne dismissed the government's proposals, and predicted it would have a "bruising contest" on its hands as it tried to pass its Lords reform legislation.

The hereditaries' removal was announced by the Queen

Lord Cranborne criticised the government for not putting more flesh on the bones of its proposals, describing Lady Jay's speech as amounting to an "outstanding exercise in silence".

He said it was "nightmarishly obvious" the government had no "coherent vision" for the future of the House or Lords further than abolishing the hereditaries.

'Grave suspicions'

He wondered if the government would "kick stage two [of Lords reform] into the long grass with the same sense of relief that it has kicked the elegantly-phrased report of the noble Lord Jenkins of Hillhead".

Tories, he said, were finding it, "increasingly difficult to view this bill with anything but the very gravest of suspicion".

Viscount Cranborne: Suspicious of Labour's plans

For the Liberal Democrats Lord Rodgers echoed Tory concerns, saying, "we still know very little indeed about how the government intends to proceed beyond the first stage".

He added there must be a "rational basis for the composition of this House ... when the hereditary peers have gone we still don't know what they will be".

During the Commons debate immediately following the Queen's speech on Tuesday, Mr Blair faced charges from Tory leader William Hague that Labour's plans would turn the House of Lords into "a House of Cronies".