Parliament is "dying", the Conservative leader in the upper house has warned.

In a pamphlet for Politeia, Lord Strathclyde sets out his plans for an overhaul of the role of the House of Lords within parliament.

He also mounts a series of attacks on the Labour government, accusing prime minister Tony Blair of failing to respect parliament and "acquiring control of the Lords by stealth".

Lord Strathclyde, who has been leader of the Opposition in the Lords since 1998, sets out a stark vision of the current role of the Palace of Westminster.

"Parliament must have the means to control the executive - and it must have the will," he writes.

"Yet parliament is dying. The House of Commons is no longer functioning as an independent chamber.

"In such circumstances, in a bicameral parliament, only the House of Lords can help to make the House of Commons do its job properly.

"But it cannot do so unless reform gives it the authority and the independence to act."

Lord Strathclyde argues that the independence of the second chamber should be secured by introducing more elected members.

The role of the reformed upper house should be to help the Commons to scrutinise legislation and if necessary ask the government to 'think again'.

His call for reform came as an ICM poll for Politeia found that 72 per cent of people believe the House of Lords does a good job.

And just under two thirds do not want to the powers of the House of Lords to be reduced.

The peer argues that the Lords has a key role to play in parliament.

"The Commons has progressively retreated from the detailed work of legislation and indulged itself increasingly in set-piece general political debate so that it is now generally acknowledged that almost all serious revision of draft legislation takes place in the Lords," he says.

And the government is warned that there could be battles to come over reform of the upper house.

"In the seemingly arcane small print of Lord's procedures and conventions could lie some very real battles for parliamentary government," he cautions.

"The next government will have a choice of historic moment.

"The choice of whether to breathe gently on the spark of independence that still glimmers in our parliament and has lately glowed more brightly in the House of Lords – or whether to close the fist and snuff it out."