UK's Lords risk expulsion

Members of Britain's House of Lords will be expelled if they break new rules limiting outside earnings, the Guardian newspaper says.

The Labour Party has ordered a parliamentary investigation into newspaper allegations that four of its members in the Upper House of Parliament were prepared to take large sums of cash for trying to get laws amended.

Baroness Royall, leader of the House of Lords, wrote in the newspaper that peers should be suspended immediately if an investigation was being carried out and that longer suspensions should be enacted if cases were proven.

She said the house did not have the power to remove peerages but in certain circumstances suspensions could become permanent.

The Guardian said tougher rules were being drawn up by the Labour Party and the opposition Conservatives.