THE SNP will today call for the abolition of the House of Lords, branding it an "absurd political institution".

The Nationalists, who are not represented in the second chamber, are calling for it to be replaced by a "democratic institution accountable to the electorate".

Labour recently announced it wanted an elected senate with members drawn from Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the English regions rather than from constituencies like MPs.

This morning, Pete Wishart, the SNP's MP for Perth, will use a debate in Westminster Hall, the Commons parallel chamber, to attack the current arrangement in the Lords and insist the institution is beyond reform and needs scrapping altogether.

Ahead of his debate, he said: "The House of Lords with its staggering 847 members, including hereditary peers and Bishops of the Church of England, is the most absurd political institution in the democratic world and it is right to describe it as an affront to our democracy.

"What should concern us just as much is not the embarrassment over its indefensible bloated size or the absurdity of its membership criteria, it is its potential and history of abuse, the total lack of accountability and its corrosive, distorting influence in our political life."

Acknowledging there were concerns about leaving the composition of the second chamber to party bosses, Mr Wishart insisted the real worry related to donors whose presence in the Lords was simply down to how much money they have given a particular party.

"'Cash for honours' is the most obvious recent example of this abuse when the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was questioned by the police and his chief fundraiser arrested. But since then appointments show donors are still a major feature.

"The public have a right to demand better than this and we now need to just abolish the whole unreformable place and put in place a democratic institution accountable to the electorate," he added.