He said that the second reading of the European Parliament Elections Bill would take place in the Lords the week before Christmas.

Business managers would then take a view on the timing to meet the January deadline.

There had been fears, played down by senior Labour and Liberal Democrat peers, that the House would sit immediately after Christmas to push through the controversial Bill.

The measure is being reintroduced next Wednesday, and is due to be rushed through all its Commons stages in one day on a "guillotine" timetable.

It will then return to peers who earlier this month defied ministers five times.

They are demanding an open list system of proportional representation for next year's contests, allowing electors to vote for individual candidates, rather than the closed list favoured by the government under which voters could choose only parties.

Lib Dems support Bill

Liberal Democrat peer Lord Rodgers earlier told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he was prepared to sit through the holidays if needed.

He said: "The government will get the Bill with our support and if we have to sit through Christmas Day and Boxing Day so be it."

Margaret Beckett: Tories will regret blocking Bill

His comments came as Leader of the Commons Margaret Beckett warned Tory peers they will "live to regret it" if they seek to wreck the government's legislative programme.

She attacked the "schoolboy shenanigans" of Tories in the House of Lords who last week defeated the Bill.

Speaking to the South Derbyshire Chamber of Commerce and Enterprise in her Derby constituency, Mrs Beckett attacked the Tories' "disgraceful use of unelected hereditary peers, representing no-one but themselves, to frustrate the will of the democratically-elected House of Commons.

"We know that the permanent, in-built Tory majority in the Lords may try to damage or even to wreck the programme set out in the Queen's Speech.

"They shouldn't. I hope they will not.

Tuesday's Queen's Speech included a Bill to remove the right of hereditary peers to sit and vote in Parliament.