Former Liberal leader Lord Steel is being asked to reconvene his party�s commission into how devolution can be extended, amid growing fears that Gordon Brown may undermine the current review on the issue.

Former Liberal leader Lord Steel is being asked to reconvene his party's commission into how devolution can be extended, amid growing fears that Gordon Brown may undermine the current review on the issue.

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Nicol Stephen will today tell his conference in Aviemore that he is recalling the Steel Commission with the remit of producing a firm set of detailed proposals on what further powers should be devolved to Holyrood.

This will then form the basis of the LibDem contribution to the new process invoked recently whereby the pro-Union parties at Holyrood and Westminster are to look at where devolution should go next.

Scotland Office minister David Cairns recently poured scorn on the new Constitutional Commission mooted by Labour leader Wendy Alexander and approved by Labour, Conservative and LibDem MSPs.

The Prime Minister came to the rescue of the proposals a week later but his intervention cast further doubts on the process when he said it was a "two-way street" which could equally see some powers clawed back by Westminster.

Announcing the recall of the Steel Commission today, Mr Stephen will say: "This new great challenge needs leadership and direction, not destruction. I have decided to recall the Steel Commission. It will create some real pressure and momentum for change, and most important of all it would make the wishes of the people of Scotland a reality."

Lord Steel's working group approved broad areas where powers could be extended to Holyrood and looked at possible ways of bringing about greater fiscal economy, but now he will be charged with coming up with a very specific package of suggestions which will become the basis of the LibDems' negotiating position with the new Constitutional Convention.

Mr Stephen means to put his party in pole position in the constitutional talks, given that both Labour and the Conservatives are still at a very early stage of working out their stances.

The move to recall Lord Steel is also seen, however, as a warning shot across the bows of the other parties, particularly in London, if there is any sign that they are prevaricating.

Mr Stephen also launched a concerted attack last night on the "abomination" of the profits made by gas suppliers.

He told a fringe meeting on the electricity grid: "When you ask yourself why, when gas prices to hard-pressed Scottish families soar by over 15%, do we have the abomination of profits in the company providing that gas rising by a staggering 500%?

"Bigger profits should have to come from bigger, better services that they provide, not from taking a bigger cut of global gas prices."

In a theme he will return to in his main conference speech today, he said: "The companies that should be making big profits are Scotland's renewable energy companies.

"Our challenge is to support them to do that," he said, adding that this would lead to "predictable, reliable, consistent energy and energy costs that will fall over time as technology evolves, rather rise over time as the fuel source runs out."

Mr Stephen accused Labour of writing its nuclear conclusion before it even started its consultation on the issue and insisted that his party's target of 100% renewable electricity was achievable.

He claimed Scotland must go even further than that, saying: "We must have new green energy targets that tackle our huge transport and heating costs which make up nearer half of Scotland's energy needs, with credible green alternatives to our utter dependence on petrol and gas."

He added: "Perhaps the largest, quickest gains of all can be on energy efficiency - driving forward dramatically higher standards in Scotland's buildings, meters that tell us the actual value of gas and electricity used in our homes, and finding ways to save billions of pounds from the huge energy costs of industry."