LORDS have denounced the Conservative Government’s attempts to change the way MPs are investigated for breaking the rules.

Labour peer George Foulkes said the Houses of Parliament were at risk of becoming a “laughing stock around the world” after the Tories’ efforts last week.

Lord Foulkes, a former Scotland office minister and MSP, challenged the government over the debacle, which Tory ministers have acknowledged was a "mistake".

He said: "The ways in which the Prime Minister dealt with the Hancock affair, the Jenrick planning fiasco and the Priti Patel bullying saga—where the wrong person resigned—were not exactly models of integrity and transparency”

He urged Cabinet Office minister Nicholas True to ensure the Ministerial code had “statutory underpinning” adding: “The independent adviser should be given some real powers before our parliamentary democracy becomes a laughing stock around the world.”

Lord True said it was the Prime Minister’s responsibility for the Ministerial Code, adding: “I cannot see the Government being persuaded that a statutory basis for an inherently prerogative function would be appropriate or desirable.”

Fellow Labour peer John Tomlinson said the Government had “trashed” the ministerial code, and said that the government had to take their responsibilities seriously “as a solemn and binding duty to the British people”.

Menzies Campbell, former Liberal Democrat leader, joked that Mr Johnson had spoken “softly” in the debate in the Commons yesterday, as he was 400miles away in Northumbria on a hospital visit.

He also said there was not necessarily a need to change the ministerial code, but a need to get Boris Johnson to implement it.

Another Labour peer, Dianne Hayter, said she ‘felt’ for the minister in having to respond for the government, but asked Lord True if he was “at all ashamed” of his MP colleagues.

Lord True simply referred to what had been said by Steve Barclay MP in the Commons debate yesterday, where he acknowledged the government had made a mistake.