THE Lords is to try to throw out more than 200 of its own peers and slash its bloated size permanently, The Sun can reveal.

Campaigning members of the upper house are to press ahead with a plan to cull it by a quarter next month, in a move that will spark fury with the old guard.

3 Campaigning members of the upper house are to press ahead with a plan to cull it by a quarter next month Credit: Alamy

A cross-party group of peers will ask the full house to agree it is too big, and force a vote on it if necessary.

The Lords themselves will then introduce a new law to strip down the chamber’s membership to 600 - the same size as the House of Commons by 2020.

Hundreds of crony new appointments in the last decade has seen the Lords spiral to the second largest parliament chamber in the wold, after the Chinese National People’s Congress.

3 The campaign is being led by ex-Tory MP Lord Cormack (left) and university lecturer Lord Norton Credit: PA:Press Association

It now has 810 members.

The Campaign for an Effective Second Chamber is led by ex-Tory MP Lord Cormack and university lecturer Lord Norton.

Lord Norton told The Sun: “We are conscious that we must reduce numbers.

“We look bloated to the public, and we will soon also be unable to fulfil our functions with the resources we have.

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“Once we get general agreement that the house is too large, we will then move on to implementing how to reduce it.

“We could initiate that with a private members bill in the Lords once we know the government is agreed with our formula.”

In a major frustration for the Government, only 255 peers are Conservatives.

They are outnumbered by 209 Labour peers, 105 Lib Dems and 177 crossbenchers.

Major showdowns are expected when peers try to block Theresa May’s plans on grammar schools and Brexit.

3 Major showdowns are expected when peers try to block Theresa May’s plans on grammar schools Credit: PA:Press Association

Under the blueprint – seen by The Sun – the strength of each party will be reviewed after every election.

And newly created peers will have to await vacancies before taking their seats.

The Lords believe they must take the initiative for reform themselves before a public backlash for abolition grows any further.

But a significant stumbling block is how to carry out the culling, with age limits, term limits and a proportionate system to the general election result all suggested.

The culling plan recently won the backing of new Lords Speaker Lord Fowler, who said in an interview with The House Magazine: “I don’t think that we can justify a situation where you have over 800 peers at the same time as you’re bringing down the Commons to 600 MPs”.