Mo Mowlam will not go the House of Lords after the general election, it was revealed on Sunday.

As the former Northern Ireland secretary steps down from the Commons, she announced that she had said no to a peerage in the prime minister's dissolution honours list.

Mowlam has not ruled out entering the upper house at some stage, but said she wanted to have "more time to think about it".

The outspoken former cabinet minister said she was not "enthusiastic" about a career in the Lords.

By convention Mowlam, who served as a cabinet minister throughout the four years of Tony Blair's government, would be entitled to a seat in the House of Lords.

However she is one of several former high profile politicians who are leaving the Commons at this election but will not go to the Lords.

The former prime minister Sir Edward Heath has ruled out becoming a peer and John Major has let it be known that he wants a period out of politics before he takes his seat in the second chamber.

Mowlam, one of Labour's most popular public faces, is campaigning in the general election, although she will take a back seat after June 7.

After the election she will work on her memoirs and is tipped for a possible job promoting non-denominational education in Northern Ireland.

She will also use her time after June 7 to raise money for rehabilitation programmes for drug addicts.