THE Government is preparing to force legislation banning foxhunting on to the statute book after Tony Blair told ministers that the House of Lords must be confronted if it continued to frustrate the will of the elected Commons.

Ministers will indicate this week that the Government will reintroduce the hunting Bill that was lost in the Lords in the last parliamentary session, leaving the way open for MPs to invoke the Parliament Acts to get it through.

Plans to leave it to a backbench Bill to push the hunting ban through are being dropped, The Times understands. Mr Blair is said to have an “iron determination” to resolve the hunting issue and to move on quickly to removing the remaining 92 hereditary peers from the Lords.

He has told ministers that the Lords must not just be allowed to veto measures for political reasons, and believes that Michael Howard’s arrival as Tory leader has encouraged Conservative peers to act in an obstructionist way.

Peter Hain, the Commons leader, said yesterday that the big question for peers was whether they intended to continue frustrating the will of the Commons.

The Prime Minister’s new hardline attitude emerged at last Thursday’s Cabinet meeting as ministers discussed how to overcome the Lords’ opposition to the Foundation Hospitals Bill and the Criminal Justice Bill.

Mr Blair, according to others attending, was “incandescent” when told that the Lords were fully intent on blocking foundation hospitals, particularly after he had spent much of the previous few days trying to persuade dissident Labour MPs to allow the legislation through.

Lords business managers told the Cabinet of their increasing frustration at their inability to secure the will of the Commons, even with legislation that had been promised in the election manifesto. Their problem is that Labour, which has a massive 164-vote majority in the Commons, has only 28 per cent of the vote in the Lords and can never be guaranteed to get anything through.

When told that Conservative peers were trying to stop the Foundation Hospitals Bill, Mr Blair is said to have exploded: “We are not having that.”

For most of the day ministers felt constrained from doing any deal with the Lords because of Mr Blair’s firm line. In the end the Bills were allowed through with the Government having to cave in yet again over its plans to curb jury trial in serious fraud cases.

Foxhunting is unlikely to be one of the Bills officially mentioned in the Queen’s Speech on the Wednesday opening of the new session. It will be one of the eight or so measures that are planned but not included in the official list. Ministers will indicate during the day that the Bill will be brought back.

The next session promises to develop into the biggest constitutional clash between the two Houses. Apart from foxhunting and the Bill to abolish hereditary peers, the Lords are also standing in the way of controversial plans to introduce top-up university fees and to give gay partners the same rights as married couples.

Mr Hain said on GMTV: “It is very important for the future of our democracy and our constitutional stability that the House of Lords recognises that its proper role is as a revising and scrutinising chamber, not a vetoing chamber. The Lords must not be allowed to frustrate important legislation bringing extra security, opportunities, democracy and greater economic stability.”

Mr Hain accused the Lords of abandoning the hunting Bill. They had not tried to amend it. “This cannot be allowed to continue. It needs to be resolved — we need closure on it — and we are seeking to work out how we can achieve that.

“Just abandoning a Bill, a Bill carried by repeated big majorities in the Commons, reflecting general election manifesto commitments, backed by the people in the polling stations . . . is a situation which is unprecedented and cannot be allowed simply to stand still.”

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