Debate over the Lords reform menu will not split MPs along strict party lines.

Jack Cunningham, the former minister who chaired the joint committee, noted that the "fiercest differences were between members of the same party".

Lord Irvine's original plans for a predominantly appointed Lords triggered widespread unease on Labour's backbenches and split the cabinet.

Robin Cook and other Labour heavy hitters threw their weight behind a greater elected element to a reformed Lords and appear to have made progress.

Other "old Labour" MPs will defend their party's historical abolitionist stance for the Lords - regardless of its composition.

Tories too have a broad range of views on both the front and backbenches.

The Conservative frontbench has officially backed an 80 per cent elected "senate".

Tory leader in the Lords, Lord Strathclyde, warned "new Labour must not be allowed to weaken the Lords, as it has the Commons".

"We need a stronger parliament," he said. "It is because we want to see a stronger House of Lords, able to use all its existing powers and with greater democratic legitimacy to hold the executive to account, that we have proposed a smaller, largely directly-elected Senate."

Former Conservative chancellor and leadership contender, Ken Clarke would go further. "I personally favour an all elected upper House," he said.

"I don't expect that we are quite ready for that because I don't believe the two houses will vote for that. But we can have a go. I think we need a more powerful and effective upper chamber and it requires above all else, the legitimacy that comes from being elected."

"I would like to see us go for the most generous option in terms of elected members.''

But Tory traditionalists are campaigning to reverse the move towards an elected, in part or in total, second chamber.

Constitutionalist Lord Norton of Louth and Staffordshire MP Sir Patrick Cormack have won cross-party backing from over 100 MPs for an appointed Lords.

"We are not opposed to change but we do not believe that change should take the form of an elected House," they argue.

"The existing second chamber adds value to the political process and we do not believe that an elected second chamber would do so."

Opponents of an elected second House echo ministerial concerns that a democratic Lords could become an alternative focus to the Commons.

"A head of steam has built up over elected peers but we feel that the implications have not been fully thought through," believes Lord Norton.

"The arguments have not been properly debated and not much thought given to it."

The Liberal Democrats have welcomed the Lords reform agenda.

In the Commons, Paul Tyler, suggested that "the dire warnings of the opponents of Lords reform have been exposed as groundless".

"Liberal Democrats welcome the joint committee report and the positive future role it sets out for the second chamber," he said.

"[It] demonstrates that the second chamber can be made both legitimate and accountable, whilst remaining free from political control freakery."

But he cautioned that "decision time" has yet to come.

"With the right electoral system, the [Lords] can work effectively alongside the Commons in holding the government to account and scrutinising its legislation.

"Decision time will come when the two Houses vote in January. But at least now we have disposed of the myth that the Lords is incapable of playing a key role in a 21st Century parliamentary democracy."

In the Lords, Lib Dem frontbench peer, Lord Goodhart welcomed moves that would combine democracy with patronage.

"The report opens the way for a reformed House of Lords which will play a greater role in the governance of our country," he said.

"By building on our existing strengths, and adding the greater legitimacy which elected members can give us, the Lords will become the Second Chamber which Britain needs."