PM to pack the 'bloated' House of Lords with even more cronies and failures Government sources say that yet another list of appointments is due But constitutional experts say move is 'unsustainable' Lords has loosened restrictions on its taxpayer-funded budget David Cameron is set to pack the House of Lords with yet more cronies David Cameron is set to pack the House of Lords with more cronies and failed politicians despite the number of peers already approaching 1,000. Constitutional experts say that ennobling dozens of political allies and donors is "unsustainable," but Government sources say that yet another list of appointments to the bloated second chamber is due. It has also emerged that the Lords has quietly loosened restrictions on its taxpayer-funded budget because of the costs associated with "increased attendance." The upper house currently has 836 members - 200 more than the House of Commons - and all three main parties have called for it to be reduced. However, 30 more peers were appointed to the Lords in the summer, adding a further £1.2million a year to the costs met by the taxpayer. Government sources now say that the Prime Minister will unveil yet another list of appointments as part of a Coalition deal to drastically alter the make-up of the upper chamber. There are currently 216 Labour members, 208 Tories and 89 Lib Dems. The Coalition parties say that when they came to power in 2010 the chamber was unfairly dominated by Labour peers. None can be removed, so the Government says it needs to appoint scores of its own to shift the balance of power and help ensure the passage of legislation through Parliament. Baroness Royall, the Labour leader in the Lords, said there would be "great anger and dismay" in the second chamber and the country as a whole if further appointments were made. Packed: Constitutional experts say that ennobling dozens of political allies and donors is 'unsustainable', but Government sources say that yet another list of appointments to the bloated second chamber is due Labour peer Lord Grocott said the last set of appointments in August had meant a "very, very substantial increase in the Government's majority within this House." "For that to be engineered half way through a Parliament is entirely without precedent," he added. With 836 members, the House of Lords is now the second biggest legislature in the world. Only the Chinese National People's Congress, which has nearly 3,000 legislators, is bigger, but it nominally represents 1.3billion people. The Lords has overtaken the European Parliament, which has 766 MEPs, and long ago overshadowed the Commons, which has 650 MPs. The Electoral Reform Society says the Lords is "increasingly bloated" and is on course to hit a membership of nearly 1,000 by the end of the current parliament. There have been a number of attempts to reform the chamber. The latest - Nick Clegg's House of Lords Reform Bill 2012 - was dropped following Tory opposition. It also emerged that a target to freeze the Lords budget during this Parliament was quietly amended this summer so that it is now "subject to the need to maintain the ability of the House and its members to carry out their parliamentary functions in changing circumstances, including increased attendance." A Government source confirmed that a list of new peers was being prepared, adding: "It has always been the intention to do the latest round of appointments in two parts. We aren't going to take any lectures from a Labour Party that stuffed the House of Lords with its duds and retreads. Mr Clegg has continued to make appointments to the Lords despite saying that the chamber should be abolished and replaced with an elected House. The Commons political and constitutional reform committee has proposed some reforms to the Lords - described as "increasingly bloated" by the Electoral Reform Society. It calls for legislation to allow the expulsion of peers convicted of a serious offence. MPs who receive custodial sentences of more than 12 months are disqualified from the Commons, but no such provision exists in the Lords. The committee also calls for a stronger "voluntary retirement" scheme to allow peers to leave the chamber, and moves to remove those who persistently fail to attend. It says that in the longer term, the introduction of fixed-term appointments for peers should be considered. Committee chairman Graham Allen MP described reform of the Lords as a "large and thorny issue" on which it has proved very difficult to get political consensus . He called on all parties to "engage in dialogue" to bring forward change.