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Two Labour peers are to be suspended from the House of Lords after an investigation into claims they took cash for influencing amendments to legislation.

Lord Taylor of Blackburn and Lord Truscott will be barred until the end of this session of Parliament - probably around six months - subject to a vote in the House next week.

Suspension will cost the peers access to tax-free allowances worth up to £335 a day.

The punishment would make them the first peers to be suspended since the time of Cromwell.

Suspension until the end of the session is the maximum penalty available to the committee and an indication of how seriously the misconduct is regarded.

Another Labour peer, Lord Snape, will be asked to apologise to the House. A fourth who was involved in the original allegations, Lord Moonie, has been cleared of wrongdoing.

The recommendations will come in a report from the Lord Privileges Committee later this morning.

The investigation began after undercover Sunday Times reporters posing as lobbyists found that Lord Taylor and Lord Truscott were prepared to help to amend legislation in return for cash.

Lord Taylor is a close political ally of Jack Straw, the justice secretary. Lord Truscott is a former Labour minister. The peers were secretly recorded making claims that they could assist in changing laws and discussing fees of up to £120,000.

The disclosure of their activities earlier this year led to an outcry in the House of Lords amid claims that they had brought the upper chamber into disrepute.

A formal investigation was launched by the subcommittee on lords’ interests, which examines allegations of misconduct. Its members include Lord Irvine of Lairg, the former lord chancellor, and Baroness Manningham-Buller, the former director-general of MI5.

The code says peers should “take decisions solely in the public interest, not to gain financial or other material benefits”. It forbids them to accept money to help change the law.

The findings of the subcommittee were considered by the Lords’ main committee on privileges, which has now determined what sanctions should be imposed.

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