Peers have voted to reject a ban on fox hunting, setting themselves on "the path of confrontation" with the Commons.

The Lords voted in favour of licensed hunting by 188 votes to 79 - setting the two houses of parliament on a collision course.

As the House of Lords began its debate on the Hunting Bill on Wednesday evening, environment minister Lord Whitty gave a downbeat assessment of the prospect for reaching agreement on the proposed law.

On Tuesday MPs had voted by 321 to 204 against a deal which would have allowed regulated hunting of foxes.

But with peers overturning that proposal, it seems almost certain that the Parliament Act will be used to force the legislation onto the statute book.

In a last ditch attempt to avert that outcome, Lord Whitty had urged peers to accept the will of the Commons.

He said it was unlikely that MPs would now accept any compromise on licensed hunting.

"I think we all know where we are," he said.

"We are now in a position where the Commons has rejected the suggestion from the Lords and, as expected, the amendments which were sent to them by your lordships were not acceptable to them.

"By envisaging allowing hare hunting and hare coursing, broadening the scope of the utility test and proposing an unrealistic commencement position this House has in effect disregarded what were already clearly the Commons' expressed concerns."

Lord Whitty added that the Lords had "thrown out the baby with the bathwater and we are in a directly confrontational situation".

"The position now is that I can see no realistic prospect of the Commons agreeing to the batch of amendments that are down again today," he warned

"By proposing to return to them and not adjusting at all from them we are still on the path of confrontation."

For the Conservatives, environment spokesman Baroness Byford said MPs had "bullied" peers on the legislation.

And Labour peer Baroness Mallalieu, Countryside Alliance president, urged her fellow peers to reinstate the registration scheme.

She also attacked the Bill as "without rationality and without principle".

"It destroys jobs, loses people their homes, divides the communities and the nation, causes economic damage to the most fragile rural economies without compensation and has unquestionably adverse animal welfare implications - not just to the quarry species but to the 20,000 hounds and countless horses too," she said.

"This is the worst sort of gesture politics."