Tony Blair will be asked to explain his decision to sack Lord Irvine of Lairg as the Lord Chancellor after conflicting reports of what happened.

The Lords Constitutional Committee has invited Mr Blair to put his side of the story after differing evidence given by Lord Irvine and Lord Turnbull, the Cabinet Secretary at the time.

The peers have also asked Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, to forward any cabinet papers relating to Mr Blair’s decision to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor in 2003 so that they can learn what happened. The requests, made at a committee session on Wednesday, follow claims by Lord Irvine that Mr Blair acted in a high-handed way over the abolition of his post — one of the Government’s biggest constitutional reforms.

The Times revealed last week that Lord Irvine accused Mr Blair of pursuing his plan to abolish the post of Lord Chancellor without any consultation with the judiciary, the House authorities or himself.

Lord Irvine learnt about the changes from newspaper reports days before his job was abolished, he claimed in a submission to the committee’s inquiry into the Cabinet Office. He challenged Mr Blair on how a decision “of such magnitude” could be made without proper consultation. The Prime Minister had appeared “mystified” and said that the machinery of government changes had to be conducted in such a way as to avoid the risk of leaks.

“It then strongly bore in on me that the Prime Minister had not received any or proper advice and was completely unaware that complex primary legislation was required,” Lord Irvine wrote.

Lord Irvine decided to speak out after it was claimed by Lord Turnbull that he had been consulted over the reform and had disagreed with it.

In evidence to the committee in July, Lord Turnbull said that Lord Irvine had to be sacked because he was blocking the reform programme and had been unwilling to act as an “advocate of change”.

The Constitutional Committee, chaired by Lord Goodlad, made clear that it wanted more information.Lord Goodlad announced that both Mr Blair and Lord Turnbull would be contacted to try to clear up the confusion. A spokesman for the committee later told The Times that both would be invited to submit written evidence on the issue.

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