West Dorset MP Oliver Letwin has suggested the House of Lords should be abolished or reformed if the unelected chamber tries to block Brexit.

Mr Letwin said a debate should be held on abolition or full-scale reform of the House of Lords if peers try to frustrate the Brexit Bill.

The Tory MP, who led David Cameron's Brexit task force, said MPs should consider action if the unelected upper chamber voted to delay the vote to trigger Article 50 before its March deadline.

The European Union (Notification Of Withdrawal) Bill was passed in the Commons on Wednesday and it now moves to the Lords where pro-EU peers have vowed to try to amend the draft legislation.

Speaking during the business statement, Mr Letwin asked Commons leader David Lidington: "Would he find time in Government time for a debate should the Lords seek to delay beyond the end of March the passage of our accession to Article 50 for this House to discuss the possibility of either the abolition or full scale reform of the Lords?"

Mr Lidington said he was "optimistic" that a debate would not be required.

In reply, he said: "I am more optimistic than you because I think that there is an awareness in the House of Lords, that as an unelected chamber, that there are conventions that apply to how they scrutinise and deal with legislation.

"I don't want to take anything away from their proper constitutional role.

"I think members of the House of Lords will be very cognisant both of the fact that this is the elected House and we voted by a huge majority last night in favour of the Bill, but also the fact that behind that lay the much bigger vote of the people of the United Kingdom as a whole."

However Pete Wishart, shadow SNP Commons leader, said threats of abolition were unlikely to leave peers "quaking in their ermine" and urged the Lords to "reach for the barricades" against the Government as they scrutinised the Bill.

He said: "What we have seen is our unelected friends have been threatened with abolition if they dare mess with this Government's Bill.

"I am sure they are now quaking in their ermine if they don't do their patriotic duty, as the Secretary of State said.

"Can I just say I offer nothing but encouragement to these fine tribunes in ermine who will pick up the case?

"For us it is very much a win-win whatever the outcome is here.

"Can I say to the Lordships - reach for the barricades and take on this Government."