Scotland’s new tax and welfare powers should be devolved on a “use it or lose it” basis, the House of Lords will hear today.

If they still lie idle after three years they should be taken back by Westminster, Scottish Labour peer Lord Maxton will argue.

His party colleague Lord Foulkes will also call for a new Scottish senate, arguing an extra chamber is necessary to counter the dominance of the SNP.

The ideas have been submitted as amendments to David Cameron's flagship Scotland Bill, which will be debated by Lords later.

Meanwhile, in a separate move, there will also be a separate bid to halt work on the Bill, amid claims even ministers don’t understand it.

Agreed in the wake of last year’s independence referendum, the Scotland Bill is set to hand significant powers to raise or lower taxes and create new welfare payments to Holyrood.

Lord Maxton's amendment calls for those powers to be "repealed at the end of ... three years" if they still lie idle.

The call for a separate Senate, meanwhile, comes amid forecasts the SNP will win a landslide in next year’s Holyrood elections.

Lord Foulkes wants a new Upper chamber to the Scottish Parliament to act as a revising house., creating an extra 46 politicians, from across Scotland.

Following the uproar that followed the multi-million pound cost of the Holyrood parliament building, Lord Foulkes suggests the new chamber should sit in the old Royal High School.

He rejected the idea that the public would baulk at creating more politicians.

“People might think is daft but when I proposed a ban on smoking in public in 1983 people thought I was daft too,” he said.

He warned that the current single chamber system “drastically reduces the checks and balances needed in a mature democracy”.

He added: “There is increasing concern in the way Holyrood is doing things without a check. In Ireland they had a referendum to get rid of the senate and the people voted to keep it.”

Other amendments tabled by Liberal Democrat peers include calls for the so-called 'fiscal framework', which will govern the flow of money between London and Edinburgh following the transfer of powers, to be reviewed after five years.

Labour’s Lord Hollick, who chairs the influential House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee, is expected to call for a delay in Bill.