Conservative MP Nicholas Soames, a grandson of Sir Winston Churchill, has said that a minister had "absolutely no right" to claim that the former prime minister believed in House of Lords reform.

His comments follow the suggestion by the constitutional reform minister Mark Harper that Churchill favoured a system in which peers were elected to large constituencies.

Mr Soames told the BBC's Ben Wright: "It is true that when he was a very young man, when he was a member of the Liberal party, he did take a very strong line on the House of Lords, which as he went through his parliamentary life he revised his views and came to the conclusion the Lords were a thoroughly important and worthwhile part of Parliament and that they should be treated as such."

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