Peers face suspension over 'cash-for-amendments'

Two peers at the centre of the "cash-for-amendments" affair face becoming the first to be barred from the Upper House in more than 350 years today.

Lord Truscott and Lord Taylor of Blackburn were found guilty by a probe last week of offering to try to change the law in return for money.

The privileges committee decided they had broken rules which state that Lords must "always act on their personal honour", and recommended suspension until the end of the parliamentary session - around six months.

Peers are expected to endorse the sanctions when they debate the committee's report today.

The controversy was triggered by claims in the Sunday Times in January that four Labour peers had told undercover journalists posing as lobbyists that they were willing to try to amend a bill in return for money.

The subcommittee on Lords' interests, which investigated the four cases in detail before submitting its findings to the main privileges committee, concluded Lord Taylor had displayed a "clear willingness" to breach the code of conduct.

Meanwhile, the evidence against Lord Truscott was said to be "so clear and plentiful that we have little doubt that (he) was advertising his power and his willingness to influence parliament in return for substantial financial inducement".

The code bans peers from accepting any financial inducement in return for exercising parliamentary influence.

The last individual to be suspended from the upper house is thought to have been Viscount Savile, who was barred in 1642 for siding with King Charles I.

Two other Labour peers implicated in the affair, Lord Moonie and Lord Snape, were cleared of any wrongdoing but ordered to apologise to the Lords for "inappropriate" conduct.