Conservative peers will be given a free vote on House of Lords reform in a bid to avoid internal rows.

The Tory front bench backs an 80 per cent elected 300-strong senate but most Conservative peers back a fully appointed Lords.

In an FT interview, Lords opposition leader, Lord Strathclyde, pledges that peers and MPs will not be given a three line whip on the issue when it is debated in parliament in the new year.

"We will have a free vote on this because it is an issue of major constitutional importance," he told the newspaper.

"What is so intersecting about reform of the second chamber is that the divisions are not always between the parties but within the parties and between the Houses."