Number 10 has declined to say whether it plans to force a ban on hunting with hounds onto the statute book despite the opposition of peers.

The comments came as the controversial attempt to ban fox hunting faced further delay after the House of Lords ran out of time to debate the bill.

On Tuesday night, peers voted 74 to 34 to adjourn the committee stage of the bill until another day.

Environment minister Lord Whitty said the move meant "it is now impossible to complete the committee stage this session".

The government must now decide whether to force through the legislation using the Parliament Act to overrule the opposition of peers.

Downing Street refused to say whether the legislation would be reintroduced in the next session of parliament.

The Lords had been given "quite a considerable" amount of time to discuss the legislation, said Number 10.

The prime minister's spokesman added that the government had "other important legislation" which has still to complete its progress.

"We never discuss what might happen... we only ever discuss what will happen in the session we are now in," said the spokesman.

Number 10 also moved to distance itself from suggestions that it had pulled the plug on the legislation.

The amount of time spent on it in the Lords had been "pretty unprecedented".

Lord Whitty and anti-hunting peers blamed the pro-hunt lobby for the collapse of the legislation.

Hunt supporters in the upper house tabled more than 100 amendments to the bill.

Anti-hunt campaigners accused peers of arrogantly attempting to block the legislation.

"The House of Lords is arrogantly defying the public mood and the will of MPs," said Mike Hobday of the League Against Cruel Sports.

"Any hope of compromise is now truly dead."