The Scottish Conservative peer in charge of a review of the Lords has dampened speculation that David Cameron will flood the Upper Chamber with Tories.

But Lord Strathclyde accused his colleagues of acting "deplorably" by defeating George Osborne's planed tax credit cuts on Monday.

The Glasgow-born Tory has been tasked by ministers with leading a 'rapid' inquiry.

Political opponents have accused the Conservative Government of seeking to punish peers for doing their job.

Commons Speaker John Bercow earlier this week said that members of the the Lords had behaved properly.

But Tory ministers insist it overstepped its reach by blocking a tax measure.

Mr Cameron is the first Conservative Prime Minister not to have a majority in the Lords.

Lord Strathclyde has been charged with ensuring MPs have the "decisive role" over key financial decisions.

He said that his review could recommend the Parliament Acts be charged to curb the power of peers as he rejected the idea of packing the Lords with greater numbers of Conservative members.

"I think the House of Lords behaved wrongly, deplorably, and unnecessarily," he said, adding that peers had acted "gleefully and capriciously".

But he denied that he was a "bully", adding: "My role is to try and give clarity to the conventions that have existed, to look at the choice because there is no government that I can think of since the Second World War that would have put up with the House of Lords destroying or stopping in its tracks a major piece of legislation to do with financial matters, a matter of weeks before the Autumn Statement and a few days after the House of Commons voted in favour of it."

He went on: "At its most extreme that is one possible solution, to try and amend the Parliament Acts. It is one of the options that are open to the Government and no doubt it will be one of the issues I examine. There are many others."

But he rejected the option of creating hundreds of new Conservative peers to give the Conservatives a majority in the Lords.

"That is not one that I would recommend," he said. "I think that would be the wrong thing to do."

He added: "One of the great strengths of the House of Lords is that the Government has no majority, you have to try and win the argument. "

Lord Strathclyde, would be talking to Labour and Liberal Democrat peers to get their views, said he aimed to complete his review before Christmas.