Lords reform: Coalition in chaos after ministers forced to cancel vote Announcing the cancellation of the programme motion on the debate, Sir George Young, the Leader of the House, said that a timetable would be set out at some point - but was greeted by jeers from MPs when he could not say when. He told MPs: "We have listened carefully to the debate so far, confident that we will get a significant majority at second reading tonight. But for Lords reform to progress it needs those that support reform to vote for reform and to vote for that reform to make progress through this House. It is clear that the Opposition are not prepared to do that, so we will not move the programme motion tonight. We remain committed to making progress on Lords reform and with second reading behind us we will then consider how best to take this agenda forward and how best to secure progress through the House for reforms that have the backing of this House. The Government will move a timetable motion before we make progress in the autumn. There were jeers from MPs on all sides of the House at the announcement, with many urging the Government to withdraw the legislation altogether. Like Sir George, David Cameron sought to blame Labour for the debacle, accusing the Opposition of "playing politics" with legislation they support. During a press conference with French President Francois Hollande this afternoon, he said: "If Labour for political, partisan, opportunistic reasons want to oppose the programme motion they are going to have to answer some tough questions about that." But Conservative Jesse Norman pointed out that the fatal blow was delivered by Tory MPs who had threaten to defy the Government on the programme motion. He told BBC Radio 4's PM programme: "The Bill is a dead duck. The question is how long will the Government go on before it recognises that and how much further will it have to go in putting the country through a lot of additional pain when the real energies of Parliament and the Government should be focused on fixing the howling economic gale that we are now in. In another embarrassment for Mr Cameron, a substantial rebellion involving most of the Conservatives opposed to the programme motion is expected to go ahead on the second reading vote. They will include at least one member of the Government, after Conor Burns, a Parliamentary Private Secretary, confirmed he would resign his job rather than vote for the reform proposals. It could mark the largest Commons rebellion by Government MPs since the Coalition was elected in 2010. Maria Eagle, the shadow leader of the house, of the move to cancel the programme motion vote: "This is a victory for Parliament."