A peer accused of falling asleep in Parliament has insisted he was just listening with his "ear against the speaker".

Labour’s Lord Young of Norwood Green "set the record straight" after a Tory frontbencher blocked him from taking part in the debate on Monday.

The peer has argued the incident damaged both his reputation and that of the House of Lords.

He explained he was trying to listen to the debate through a speaker built into the back of benches after he had issues with his hearing aid.

The former union boss made his remarks after he was “discourteously dismissed” by Tory Baroness Bloomfield of Hinton Waldrist.

The Government whip in the Lords had claimed the peer had been "fast sleep" during the opening speech of a debate on genetic modification.

Addressing the episode in the chamber on Thursday, Lord Young said: “When I endeavoured to make a contribution to this debate I was discourteously dismissed by Baroness Bloomfield on the grounds that she suggested I had been asleep during the minister’s contribution.

“I said to her that wasn’t true, in fact what I was doing was listening as we do with my ear against the speaker.”

There are speakers built into the back of the red benches to help peers hear whoever is speaking.

Referring to the accusation levelled by Baroness Bloomfield, Lord Young said: “Not only did it do some damage to my reputation, hopefully passing, but also damaged the reputation of the House unnecessarily in my view.

“There are procedures for dealing with this which shouldn’t have been dealt with that way.”

He added: “I received what purported to be a letter of apology from Baroness Bloomfield and it started with line ‘Whatever the rights and wrongs’.

“It seemed to me that wasn’t really an apology, that was more, shall we say, an equivocation at its best and I don’t accept that that was an apology.

“I feel there was an obligation and I did say to Baroness Bloomfield in my reply that we should set the record straight in this House as I am endeavouring to do now and that she should be here to hear that and in my view to apologise to the House.

“That would have been the proper thing to do. She has chosen to be absent, you can draw what conclusions you like.

“I would like to that all those people … who came to me and expressed their concern about the behaviour which they regarded as appalling and discourteous.”