LONDON — Few dispute the need for changes to the House of Lords, Britain’s unelected and scandal-hit upper parliamentary chamber, which is the world’s largest legislative assembly outside China. Most critics complain about the chamber’s increase in number in the past 15 years, now with close to 800 voting members.

But on Thursday, recommendations were published that would reduce its powers rather than its size.

The initiative follows a political tussle between ministers and the chamber: the House of Lords rejected government proposals on curbing social welfare payments in October.

That left a hole of about 4.4 billion pounds, or $6.6 billion, in the government’s plans to balance the budget and prompted the chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, to make a humiliating retreat over the issue.

In flexing its muscles, the Lords revived a debate that has stirred, intermittently, for more than a century over the role of the upper chamber, which generally accepts its junior status in Parliament to elected lawmakers in the House of Commons.