Plans to reform the Lords have been heavily attacked by MPs from all sides in the Commons.

Many MPs lined up to express their anger at the government's plans to allow only 20 per cent of peers to be elected.At a private meeting of Labour MPs on Wednesday the Lord Chancellor's plans were described as "undemocratic" and "a dog's breakfast". One Labour MP said the plans "were without a friend" at the meeting.

Commons leader Robin Cook began the debate vowing the new-look Lords would be based on "the widest possible consensus".

Cook offered an olive branch saying the government would listen to alternative views and try to find the "centre of balance'' that would allow reforms to go ahead.

"I recognise that not all Members who support reform and support the principles of the White Paper will necessarily share all the solutions by which the White Paper achieves those principles. What is now urgent is to find the package which would establish the greatest consensus among MPs and the public.

"Of course we are going to listen to what is said during the consultation period and, in that period of reflection that will follow, we will see if we can find the centre of gravity in order to move forward with reform."

He warned there would be no compromise on the hereditary principle being ended and that the new second chamber should reflect the country's broad political balance.

"I know that a number of Members have differences with some of the proposals. We want to explore those differences. But I know also that most Members want to see reform proceed and I ask the House to recognise the far-reaching extent of reform on which the White Paper is based."

Former culture secretary Chris Smith dismissed the plans as just plain "wrong". Smith said 20 per cent "would not do" and a minimum of 50 per cent should be elected.

Smith said Parliament was trying to achieve greater democratic legitimacy to the way legislation was passed and the government was held to account.

"I don't believe the government's present proposals pass that test. Quite simply, the Government haven't got it right.""I do believe it makes sense to divorce the honour of a peerage from membership of a legislative assembly. On all of these points I think there is a broad agreement on many sides of the House, beyond that however, we get into more difficult territory," he said.

Labour MP Gordon Prentice also called for the number of peers to be cut arguing the House of Representatives in the US got by on far less. He was also "quite chilled out" about some judicial powers going to the Lords as well as scrutiny over public appointments.

Liberal Democrat backbencher John Thurso, himself a viscount, said the reforms proposed by the government did not pass his own test that satisfaction is the difference between delivery and expectation.

"We have to be able to say that what we have achieved is legitimate. If we can get through that test then we would have done a great deal," he said.

Thurso had little affection for the cross-benchers in the Lords. "In my experience I found the hereditary ones were closet Tories and the great and the good were so great and good they rarely bothered to show up."

Jane Griffiths, the Labour MP for Reading East, also had little time for the government's proposals describing them as "pusillanimous and wrong".

The government would not solve the problem of having a crisis of legitimacy between two elected chambers "by stuffing one of them with unelected people", she believed.

"Let us have an elected second chamber. Let us return our government to the people," Griffiths said.