The House of Lords has again defeated the government on its plans for the introduction of identity cards.

Peers voted by 227 to 166, a majority of 61, to amend the Identity Cards Bill.

Their move will raise expectations of a prolonged bout of legislative 'ping pong' over the details of the proposals.

Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats were opposing moves they say would make the ID cards compulsory in all but name, having previously inflicted one set of defeats on the government.

But ministers succeeded in getting those amendments overturned in the Commons, which had sent the Bill back to the Lords. The legislation will now head back for further consideration by MPs.

The Commons has been insisting that anyone applying for a passport from 2008 should also be compelled to get an ID card and have their details recorded on a national database.

The opposition parties insist that this is 'backdoor compulsion' and claim they are justified in opposing it as it was not a Labour manifesto commitment..

Conservative leader in the upper house Lord Strathclyde told the BBC on Monday: "We want to go back to an entirely voluntary scheme.

"The reason why this is so important is that if we don't get it right, some 85 per cent of the people of this country will be affected within the next five to six years."

But Home Office minister Andy Burnham told Radio 4's Today programme: "The effect of the amendment they are seeking to push today is that all the same information will be taken anyway, because we are getting a biometric passport, but we would lose the safeguards and the scrutiny and the legal framework that comes with the ID register."