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With an impending (if minor) Lib Dem resignation from the government rumoured over student tuition fees, and Nick Clegg under heavy bombardment at Deputy Prime Minister's Questions this afternoon, Lib Dem MPs are really feeling the heat.

And given the number of them who come from university seats they are right to be worried. You have only to look back to the introduction of variable tuition fees in the 2004 Higher Education Bill to see the electoral price paid by Labour MPs in the general election a year later. Remember, Labour included a specific promise not to introduce any top-up fees in their 2001 election manifesto, only to execute a u-turn a few years later.

They were duly hammered at the polls by the, er, Lib Dems - and the fees factor may well account for the presence in the Commons of among others (Manchester Withington), (Cardiff Central), David Howarth (Cambridge - and now succeeded by ), (Bristol W) and (Leeds NW).

Now the student vote - which they wooed in May by publicly signing a pledge not to do what their coalition is now doing - may turn on them.

Hence the talk that Lib Dems may abstain in the Commons vote on raising the tuition fee cap to a maximum Β£9,000. The coalition agreement, the policy programme agreed after the election, was prescient enough to include a get-out clause allowing the Lib Dems to abstain on this issue, but I wonder if angry student voters will be impressed by abstentions, or even outright votes against, by individual MPs. The coalition's majority will only be threatened if a large number of Lib Dem MPs vote against, rather than abstain... and if the senior Lib Dem coalitionists vote for, that would be enough to ensure the measure goes through.

Perhaps a better hope for beleaguered Lib Dems in university seats would be for the coalition to last its planned term and go to the country in 2015 - by which time most current students would have graduated (or not) and moved elsewhere. But what of the effect on the coalition? Can Lib Dem ministers really abstain on a government policy, even with cover provided by the coalition agreement? And if they do, might Conservative ministers claim the right to abstain on constituency interest issues, such as the HS2 high speed rail project? In Lib Dem ranks, the hope is that the coalition can cope with its Lib Dem MPs voting in perhaps three different directions on tuition fees, then pick itself up, dust itself down, and move on as if nothing has happened.

They may be right. Of course, Conservative MPs won't be happy at the Lib Dems acting as if they're in the coalition when it suits them, and out of it when it is expedient. But that's showbusiness.

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On Monday, George Osborne will be making his autumn statement. This statement follows the Chancellor's budget in June - and the . I'm not quite sure what he'll have to add to his Comprehensive Spending Review of a few weeks ago - perhaps some economic forecasts and a promise of tax cuts on the "squeezed middle" when the economic storms have passed?

After that, the Backbench Business Committee has chosen banking reform and the regulation of independent financial advisers as subjects for debate. The Banking Reform debate is on a motion from Labour's Michael Meacher calling for tougher regulation of the financial markets. The Lords will be discussing the Public Bodies Bill in the second day of a committee of the whole house.

Tuesday is a day for opposition debates in the Commons; two dealing with recent controversies - school sport funding and tuition fees. Meanwhile, the Lords begin their detailed scrutiny of the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill - the bill to hold a referendum on switching to the alternative vote electoral system, and to cut the number of Commons seats to 600, while standardising their size. This is the start of a bit of a marathon for peers - who will have five days of committee stage debate on this bill before Christmas, with a promise of more in the new year. Yummy.

The hearing on British extradition policy should be a real cracker - the star witness is Janis Sharp, the mother of hacker Gary McKinnon, who is fighting extradition to America, where he is accused of hacking into Pentagon and NASA computer systems, eight years ago. With her will be Shami Chakrabarti of Liberty. And the appetiser will be former Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Secretary David Blunkett - who brought in the 2003 Extradition Act, under which Mr McKinnon may be sent to the US. He will appear along with Jago Russell of Fair Trials Abroad.

And there will also be a "topical slot" when the witness will be the former Chief of Police in New York, Bill Bratton - talking about his "zero tolerance" crime cutting strategy.

The inquiry into transport and the economy inquiry moves on to consider HS2 - the controversial scheme for a high speed rail link, which is attracting strong opposition in the constituencies affected by the proposed route.

And the will be questioning Chancellor George Osborne. Former Chancellor Lord Lawson is one of this distinguished committee; so it's far from an easy ride for Mr Osborne.

On Wednesday, the Commons polishes off the Fixed Term Parliaments Bill - having so far defeated all attempts to amend it. That should allow enough time for the Bill to have its second reading in the Lords before Christmas.

Former Transport Secretary Andrew Adonis will be revisiting his decision to ban flights when the ash-cloud from the Iceland volcanic eruption enveloped Europe, as part of the inquiry into the scientific advice given to ministers in emergencies. Former Health Secretary Andy Burnham will discuss the advice he received over the swine flu epidemic. And the Security Minister Baroness Neville-Jones will chip in with her thoughts about cyber-security. Proceedings will be rounded off with evidence from the minister in charge of science policy, David Willetts.

And on Thursday, we'll see Adam Afriyie's long-awaited debate on IPSA and the MPs' expenses system held, under the aegis of the Backbench Business Committee. I understand there's been extensive lobbying of ministers and party leaders, to try to defuse any fears that addressing MPs' concerns about IPSA's shortcomings would re-open this particular can of worms.

The ("Cleggwatch") will be examining the relationship between local and national government, with the councils' umbrella group, the Local Government Association. There seems to be a bit of overlap between their inquiry and the Communities and Local Government Committee's inquiry into the currently popular doctrine of "Localism". Last week the Cleggwatchers found themselves quizzing local government guru Tony Travers, who's advising the CLG committee - which all concerned found a bit odd.

At the end of the week, there are more Private Members' Bills in the Commons - including a bill on Daylight Saving Time from Conservative Rebecca Harris, and a bill to extend legislation on gangmasters to the Construction Industry from Labour's David Hamilton.

In the Lords, the former Liberal Leader David Steel brings back an updated version of his Private Members' Bill for minimalist reform of the Upper House. It would phase out the hereditary peerage by not replacing them when they die, cap the size of the Lords so that it had no more members than the Commons, guarantee that no one party or governing coalition had an outright majority, and revamp the process for new appointments to the House.

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The most significant moment in today's PMQs was not the fairly routine knockabout between Messrs Cameron and Miliband, but the eurosceptic bill of indictment read out by Maastricht veteran Bill Cash. He asked the prime minister - his leader - to explain why "at every turn - the City of London, the investigative order, economic governance of Europe and also the stabilisation mechanism - under your premiership this coalition government is acquiescing in more European integration and not less and no repatriation of powers".

This compendium of euro-grievances is shared by plenty of Conservative backbenchers. The tepid reception given to George Osborne's statement on the Irish bailout on Monday was one indicator of how unhappy many Conservatives now are. A mood not dispelled by Mr Osborne's ducking an invitation to rule out British participation in further rescue operations for, for example Portugal or Spain.

David Cameron can claim to have resisted the EU budget increase demanded by the European Parliament, and has said he would be unconcerned if deadlock in the budget negotiations between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers results in an effective freeze in EU funding. But the sceptics are more concerned about what they fear is Britain's inexorable absorption into European economic governance.

Recent votes have seen constant low level rebellion. The has identified 46 Conservative MPs who have defied the coalition line on some euro-issue, and a total 72 who have rebelled at some point on some issue. As they pointed out in the last Parliament, rebellion becomes easier after the first time, so David Cameron and Chief Whip Patrick McLoughlin have genuine cause for anxiety - especially because it runs along one of the coalition fault-lines, with the sceptics muttering darkly that the Lib Dems have beguiled their leadership and lured them into europhilia.

And mere anxiety could become real concern if an issue arises where rebel sceptics could vote with Labour - if a motion could be constructed that played on those divisions the coalition could be defeated and, at best, seriously embarrassed.

One veteran sceptic wondered how long it would be before Labour became sufficiently ruthless to give that tactic a go....

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The fishermen - or rather their MPs - are worried. It's just beginning to sink into the consciousness of interested MPs that some of the regular features of the Commons calendar are now under the control of the Backbench Business Committee.

That includes the annual fisheries debate, usually held in the run-up to the meeting of the EU Council of fisheries ministers.

The fisheries debate, with its arcane-sounding discussions of marine biomass tonnage and similar issues, is an important annual event for those MPs with a constituency interest. In the past it's had a primetime slot in the chamber, but this year's debate is to be held on 2 December in Westminster Hall, the Commons' parallel debating chamber.

At Commons Business Questions last week, the former Lib Dem leader, Charles Kennedy, complained that the government should be making the time available - not deducting it from the Backbench Committee's allowance.

But it isn't deducting anything. (see par 145) makes clear that a number of set-piece debates including the fisheries debate and the regular debates held before European summits will come under the aegis of the Backbench Business Committee and some MPs for fishing constituencies - and there are about 80 of them (plus, I daresay a few MPs for chi-chi inner city constituencies who're worried about the availability of monkfish and red mullet) - may regard holding the debate in Westminster Hall as a demotion.

So far the Backbench Business Committee has been pretty shrewd in its choice of subjects to be debated, and in developing an open process to choose them. For the first time, with this decision, it may have upset actual backbenchers.

This may matter because the committee is still a new kid on the Westminster block - and there are some who would be happy to see it fail.

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Next Thursday's Commons debate on MPs' expenses is beginning to look like a perfect storm in the making.

Not only will MPs debate motion regretting the "high costs and inadequacies" of the new Commons expenses watchdog, IPSA, and calling for time to be made available for MPs to amend the legislation which set it up, if the system is not improved - and not only will the latest helping of details on MPs expenses be published - but MPs will also debate the motion objected to last week, which would allow the publication of details of expense complaints not upheld, or "rectified".

So the public will be able to judge whether IPSA has been too soft on some complaints, or has allowed any MPs to quietly repay overclaimed expenses. Standards and Privileges Committee Chairman Kevin Barron was visibly astonished when the word "object" was shouted - after efforts had been made to ensure all the known awkward squaddies would not block the measure, and S&P Committee members are a little miffed that they will now have to attend a debate on the issue, to get it through, not least because they all thought it was a straightforward and innocuous move to increase transparency.

And now an extra, piquant ingredient has been added to this simmering brew - - which its critics claim demonstrates that it is far more expensive than the system it replaced. Six months into the new Parliament, you can still hardly walk 10 feet in Westminster without encountering an MP with a grievance against IPSA, although now there also tend to be sardonic comments about what the parliamentarians call their "current charm offensive".

It really wouldn't surprise me if Mr Afriyie's motion is passed and time has to be provided to amend the Parliamentary Standards Act, if IPSA fails to cut its costs and cut the administrative burden it places on MPs and their staff.

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The week starts with MPs examining the remaining stages of the Savings Accounts and Health In Pregnancy Grant Bill; peers will be occupied with the Finance Bill.

Much more interest will be afforded on committee corridor, where a "robust" encounter is promised when Communities Secretary Eric Pickles appears before the to talk about the abolition of the previous government's planning guidelines, the exotically named Regional Spacial Strategies.

On Tuesday in the Commons, we'll see the second reading of the National Insurance Contributions Bill and the Lords will be convening a committee of the whole house to debate the Public Bodies Bill.

The inquiry into public spending on health and social care culminates in an appearance by the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley. Previous sessions of this inquiry, with the Major government's Health Secretary Stephen Dorrell in the chair, make it clear that the committee is more worried about the practical impact of spending levels on the real-life delivery of care than about the level of spending. Given recent policy announcements on an increase in "personal budgets" - where the service users decide how the money allocated to them is spent - the questioning may focus more on the social care side.

And the has an intriguing looking session about educating the next generation of scientists. The Department for Education is not on course to meet the targets set by the previous government for recruiting more mathematics and physics teachers by 2014.

A found that the department has made good progress in improving take-up and achievement in areas such as A-level maths and GCSE triple science - but less success in increasing the number of science teachers, improving take-up of A-level physics and raising the standards of school science facilities.

With the Financial Services Authority heading for a fiery demise in the bonfire of the quangos, how will the City of London be policed in the future? The Treasury Committee asks the FSA's Lord Turner and Hector Sants.

And with the Welsh language TV channel S4C being moved under the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ's umbrella, the will be examining the implications of that decision.

In Westminster Hall, Wycombe MP Steve Baker has an adjournment debate on the proposed expansion of High Speed Rail - HS2. Expect plenty more such debates, with local issues raised by MPs with constituencies along the proposed route.

Ed Miliband will be back from paternity leave on Wednesday to face David Cameron at prime minister's questions. Later in the day, MPs will be discussing Fixed-term Parliaments Bill - the proposal to fix parliamentary terms to five years. Their lordships will be looking at the Identity Documents Bill (after last week's defeat for the government on the issue of compensation) and Equitable Live Bill.

Behind the scenes there are growing worries about the local political ramifications of spending cuts in the Department of Transport - with talk of a "Forgemasters Effect" where the demise of some high profile scheme results in a toxic fallout for local MPs - so a good moment for the to quiz Secretary of State Phillip Hammond about claims that some regions are experiencing much deeper cuts than others.

And the Public Accounts Committee has a session on the Private Finance Initiative in housing and hospitals. Do PFI projects deliver value for money in the long and short term?

And on Thursday, the (known in the trade as "Cleggwatch") will be hearing from pundit and quangocrat Sir Simon Jenkins and academic expert Tony Travers about the balance between central and local government.

In the main chamber, the Local Government Bill's remaining stages will be talked out by MPs and Louise Bagshawe - one of the high profile new intake - will be introducing an adjournment debate on care for ex-servicemen.

In the Lords, perhaps still nursing contusions after his resignation as a government advisor, Lord Young of Graffham has a debate on his report on 'elf and safety.

After a few weeks of private members' bills on Fridays, nothing is planned for this week. A rest, perhaps, for those determined to spend the end of the week talking out others' efforts. They will be back next week.

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At last, MPs are to get a chance to debate the thing they really, really, hate - their expenses watchdog, IPSA. I understand that, following his failure to secure an unopposed second reading for his bill to reform IPSA, the has secured the consolation prize of a debate in time allocated by the Backbench Business Committee.

The committee had been hemming and hawing about giving time for reforms to their expenses regime to be debated because they feared that very few MPs would be prepared to stick their heads above the parapet and speak. Last week they sent Mr Afriyie off to sign up enough MPs to assuage their fears, and he now seems to have succeeded. I'm sure the government would much rather not re-open the issue, but those MPs who hate the complexities and bureaucratic burdens imposed by the IPSA system will now have a chance to vent their collective spleen.

The Westminster Hall debate on IPSA a back on 16 June was a pretty brutal affair, with angry backbenchers of vast seniority queuing up to make their displeasure clear - and duffing up the then shadow Justice Secretary and architect of the legislation which set up IPSA, Jack Straw. Since then, familiarity may have dulled their pain, but I still anticipate some fireworks.

The Leader of the House, Sir George Young, will announce the date for the debate in his business statement later today - and it will be interesting to see whether the debate is held in the chamber, or consigned to Westminster Hall, perhaps in the hope that it will attract less attention there. We shall see.

UPDATE: The debate is to be held on 2 December, in the chamber of the Commons, Sir George Young has just announced.

UPDATE: Earlier this week there was an attempt to wave through new Commons rules on the publication of the repayment deals under which MPs "rectify" overclaimed expenses, and breaches of the rules. But that was scuppered when one MP shouted "object".

(The Commons nods through quite a lot of rule changes and even secondary legislation on the proviso that anyone can force a debate with a single shout of object.)

But the effect of this is not to end any prospect of details of the repayments being published - it simply means there must be a debate on changes. The proposals emanate from the Standards and Privileges Committee - and I gather they are keen to see them debated as soon as possible, so the result of the objection is likely to be more, not less, publicity for the repayments by erring MPs. I'm sure they will all be delighted.

YET ANOTHER UPDATE: To add spice to 2 December's proceedings, IPSA have announced they're publishing the latest tranche of MPs' expenses on that very day.

IPSA's publication website will go live at 10am on 2 December, and will include details of 20,000 claims made by 576 MPs.

The press release adds:

"For each claim, IPSA will publish proactively the MP's name, constituency, the budget the claim is made from (such as general administrative expenditure), and the type of expense (such as travel). For travel claims, IPSA will publish the start point and destination for each journey and the class of travel.

"The first round of publication will cover claims made between 7 May and 31 August. As previously announced, claims made up to the 14 September which were not paid will not be published proactively. This recognises that during the initial stages of the new regime, MPs, their staff and, indeed IPSA staff, took time to familiarise themselves with the new rules and system. Details of all claims made from the 15 September onwards will be published proactively, including those not paid.

"IPSA will be routinely publishing MPs expenses in cycles, three months in arrears, every two months, meaning the next set covering September and October 2010 will be available in early February 2011. Each publication cycle is likely to include a number of older claims where reviews, late submission of evidence, or investigations may have affected the timeliness of the reimbursement or otherwise of an expense claim.

"We will also be publishing data on MPs' office rental and staffing costs once a year, and will do this after the end of the financial year in which the costs were incurred.

"IPSA will not be publishing receipts proactively - the cost of preparing tens of thousands of receipts for publication would be around Β£1m a year and would not provide value for taxpayers' money."

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Speaker Bercow may be annoying any number of senior MPs by shutting them up when he thinks they've spoken too long in the Commons, or wandered too far off piste, but he surely deserves considerable credit for the vast number of urgent questions he has granted since taking the chair. Today's was from the backbench awkward squaddie Peter Bone, who wanted assurances about the British taxpayer being asked to underwrite a bailout of the Irish Republic.

To be sure, he didn't get much in the way of an answer from the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, who took refuge behind the formula that no request for aid had yet been made by the Irish government. But the occasion did allow MPs of all euro-views to weigh in with their thoughts about the possibility of a multi billion pound guarantee to Dublin.

In a breathless half hour, everyone from Douglas Carswell, who thinks British policy should be to assist euro-zone members to re-establish their own currencies, to Denis MacShane, who thinks the bailout would be an elementary act of EU solidarity, had their say. And it was quite clear that there is considerable disquiet at the implications for the taxpayer,

Very good for backbenchers, less so for ministers and opposition front-benchers. Typically the Speaker decides to grant an urgent question late in the morning, and his officials phone the respective whips offices to alert them. The whips then phone the wrong minister or shadow minister to pass on the alert, and then, after a brief but vigorous orgy of buck-passing, suitable figures are chosen to answer for government and opposition. They may then have as little as 40 minutes to work out what to say - which explains quite a lot.

Meanwhile, if Britain does have to chip in a few billion to help Ireland, there will presumably have to be a Commons vote. And it could be quite a test for the government whips to forestall another substantial backbench rebellion on another euro-issue.

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A neat little coup from thelast week, when its members politely mobbed the coalition's culture spokesman in the Lords, Baroness Rawlings, over the auctioning off to an anonymous buyer of one of the most spectacular UK discoveries of recent years, the Crosby Garrett helmet.

This Roman helmet was sold at Christie's for Β£2.3m - but if it had been made of gold or silver, rather than bronze, it would have been considered treasure - and would have been far more likely to have ended up in a museum, like the Tullie House in Carlisle . At Lords questions, the eminent archaeologist Lord Renfrew raised its fate and asked for a change in the law on treasure (what used to be called treasure trove) so that it covered bronze objects from the Roman era - as well as those made from precious metals.

Lady Rawlings had to admit she had no idea where the helmet now was - although an export licence would be needed, if the owner wanted to take it out of the country. As the questioning widened, she assured Lord Allan of Hallam, the former Lib Dem MP Richard Allan, that funding for the Portable Antiquities Scheme was secure, despite the abolition of its parent body, the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council, in the forthcoming bonfire of the quangos. The (many unearthed by metal-detector users, as was the helmet). APPAG members were ecstatic to get an assurance about its future on the record, and Lord Renfrew was pretty pleased at hints that the law on treasure may be extended to cover bronze artefacts from Roman times.

Another point scored by one of Parliament's most effective interest groups...

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A historic first, of sorts, can be found in column 494 of the House of Lords Hansard for last Friday - the 12th - in which the Labour peer and former minister Lord Gilbert expands the list of permissible parliamentary language in his speech on the Strategic Defence and Security Review.

Because this is a family blog, I won't repeat the Anglo-Saxon term he employed to describe the A400 M military transport aircraft, but it did produce uneasy titters around their Lordships House. But the editor of Hansard

And as Lord Gilbert observes, this is his second use of this particular term in the Upper House, although his first success in getting it quoted.

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Another marathon debate is expected in the Lords tonight - as peers sink their teeth into the Fresh from their eight hour trashing of the government's Strategic Defence and Security Review on Friday, no fewer than 55 Noble Lords have put their names down to speak - with quite a collection of former Labour MPs among them.

Watch out for , the artist formerly known as Michael Wills, MP for Swindon, who has always been one of the most thoughtful Labour voices on these issues. And on a bill that is almost exclusively about how the Commons is elected, the (Lord Martin of Springburn) will weigh in.

But it may be that the coalition will have more to worry about from its own side. There only seems to be a sprinkling of Conservative backbenchers, and some of them may well be hostile. Lord Strathclyde, opening for the coalition, and Lord McNally, winding up, probably around midnight, can expect a pounding. When I interviewed him for last night's Westminster Hour, on Radio Four, Lord McNally kindly offered me a gallery seat to watch him speak...but, alas, I'll be tucked up in bed by then.

But you can watch it all, here at Democracy Live.

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On Monday, the week in Westminster kicks off with Education questions and the second reading of the Terrorist Asset Freezing Bill in the Commons. The bill began life in the Lords - and was passed on 25 October. And David Cameron will be reporting back on the outcome of the G20 summit in Seoul.

Their lordships will be discussing the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill - where, as I've blogged before, the coalition could face amendments which would change the arrangements for redrawing constituency boundaries and possibly mean that the new boundaries were not in place in time for a 2015 General Election. Picking apart this kind of detailed legislation is meat and drink to the learned and noble members of the Upper House - particularly the Crossbenchers - and the Coalition will be watching with interest to see which parts of the bills emerge unscathed from their lordships' mauling.

Up on the committee corridor, the will be continuing its inquiry into Afghanistan and Pakistan - and this week MPs will be questioning Foreign Secretary William Hague. And with the Localism and Democracy Bill due before MPs soon, the will be quizzing academics and councillors about the snark-like concept of localism.

On Tuesday, the Commons turns its attention to constitutional matters: the Fixed-term Parliaments Bill. A committee of the whole house will be examining the Coalition's plan to fix parliamentary terms at five years - the first day of another run of detailed constitutional legislating (day 2 is on Wednesday 24). Blogging Labour MP Tom Harris will be introducing the evening's adjournment debate: on the Scotland Office policy on proposals to move away from Greenwich Mean Time - a hot topic north of Berwick.

As their numbers continue to rise inexorably towards 800, peers will be debating the interim report from the Leader's Group on members leaving the House. A menu of options to allow peers to resign has been drawn up by a committee under Lord Hunt of Wirral, and this debate is a taking of the voices.

Committee-wise, it's a busy day. The will be looking at the workings of the family courts, the will be talking to Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke and his Lib Dem deputy Lord McNally about the government's policy on human rights. Will the prime minister's latest foray to China come up? And the talks to two intimidating-looking panels of experts in its esoteric-sounding but important inquiry into NHS Commissioning.

David Cameron will be back at the despatch box for PMQs on Wednesday. The rest of the day in the Commons will include Opposition Day debates on health and education. Meanwhile, in the Lords, questions on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and the UK's relationship with Tajikistan precede discussion of the Contaminated Blood Bill and Identity Documents Bill.

MPs on the will be looking at cyber attacks, the will be considering the appointment of General Sir David Richards as chief of the defence staff and the - now led by Margaret Hodge - will be quizzing Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O'Donnell about the government's use of consultants. Could be an interesting session.

On Thursday, the Backbench Business Committee flex their muscles again, as MPs are scheduled to discuss immigration - in a debate obtained by Frank Field and Nicholas Soames, who . And look out for Green MP Caroline Lucas's adjournment debate on deep water drilling for oil, off the Shetland Islands.

Over in the Lords, there are more crowd-pleasers: debates on the Common Agricultural Policy, the role of active citizenship in society (mentions of the Big Society?) and the work of the Council of Europe.

In the afternoon, though, many eyes will be turned to the - which meets only twice a year; and whose membership is made up of the chairs of other select committees. They will be questioning David Cameron - for the first time - and questions can range far and wide - although I understand the new chairman, the Lib Dem veteran Sir Alan Beith is working hard to get effective themed questioning, and is keen to avoid the session turning into a marathon version of PMQs. It will be interesting to see how Mr Cameron fares - Gordon Brown tended to bludgeon MPs into submission with facts and figures; how will his successor's smoother style go down?

And on Friday, the awkward squad will, no doubt, be back out in force for another round of private members' bills. For two Fridays now, David Nuttall, Christopher Chope et al have talked out bills which Labour MPs wanted to get into committee stage, to the evident frustration of supporters who gave up their constituency Fridays to try and push them through. The two bills debated so far have not attracted the 100 MPs necessary to vote through a closure motion when - will Chris White's Public services (Social Enterprise and Social Value) Bill? Or will it meet the same fate as the Industrial Action Bill and the Sustainable Livestock Bill?

But the highlight of my week will be Andrew Turner's Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday afternoon - on government policy on lion trophies and the protection of lions. Anything after that is going to feel rather flat...

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A new Commons character is born - for the second running, Bury North's David Nuttall is treating MPs to a marathon speech.

Presumably his aim is to help "talk out" the Sustainable Livestock Bill which hopes to reduce British meat and dairy factory farms' dependence on animal feed grown in South America. Under the slightly strange Commons rules for private members' bills, 100 MPs have to vote in favour of ending the debate and moving to a vote to give the bill a second reading - a "closure motion" in Commons jargon - and if they just keep on talking, until time runs out, the bill effectively loses its chance of getting any further, unless some very cunning footwork is employed.

Speaker Bercow has already been on his feet, remarking that Mr Nuttall took 99 minutes to develop his argument last time, and hoping he will be a little more brief this time. Some hope...

For once it's a busy Friday in Westminster. Their Lordships are sitting to debate the Strategic Security and Defence Review - with 49 peers listed to contribute including a galaxy of former defence secretaries (John Hutton is due to make his maiden speech) admirals and generals.

The debate is expected to continue till around 5pm, and, and via Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Parliament...

And as I write the temperature is rising. After a low key opening from the Defence Minister Lord Astor of Hever, Labour's Lord Rosser has been getting some vehement "hear hears". The last debate of this kind, under the previous government, saw a succession of vastly senior military figures bombarding Labour positions with frustrated fury. Their target this time may well be the Coalition's plans. I'll update as events unfold.

UPDATE: Mr Nuttall has just sat down. He restricted himself to a relatively modest 71 minutes today - it was 99 minutes last time.

UPDATE at 1240: The government is taking a considerable kicking from the massed ranks of former defence secretaries, and retired generals and admirals in the Lords Strategic Defence and Security Review debate.

Several have weighed in, but the most devastating so far has been Lord Boyce, former Chief of the Defence Staff 2001-03, who savaged the decisions. He remarked that the Treasury would doubtless want any service personnel who were released to be given the minimum possible payoff; noted that there was no compulsory redundancy scheme for Ministry of Defence civil servants; blasted the logic used to justify the decision not to have aircraft on the Navy's two new carriers for 10 years in withering terms; wondering whether the members of the new National Security Council had been asleep through recent crises, when they argued that there was no threat in sight which would justify keeping the capability; pointed out that ministers would not be expected to sail in aging Trident submarines, and warning that ministers were taking "an "enormous gamble" with national security for financial reasons, adding they should have the moral courage to admit it.

I could smell the scorching from here.

UPDATE 1400: An attempt to close the debate on the Sustainable Livestock Bill and move to a vote has just failed - MPs votes in favour by 62-29, but the rules require 100 plus MPs voting in favour, so a kind of zombie debate shuffles on towards the end of the allotted time at 2.30pm.

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More euro-fun in prospect at Westminster as sceptical Tory backbenchers cast a cynical eye on the government's new bill to enact its promised "referendum lock" on transfers of sovereignty to the EU. The bill will require any new EU treaties or major changes to existing treaties to be approved by the people - if the changes are "significant".

Spookily enough that very issue of significance was behind the latest backbench Conservative rebellion, last night - of which more in a moment. I'm not sure, as yet, how this bill will be processed through the Commons - but since it is arguably constitutional legislation, it may well be debated in detail in a committee of the whole house open to all MPs. In which case, parliamentarians can expect to devote many happy hours discussing the precise meaning of that slippery word "significant".

And probably some very elaborate amendments attempting to apply a very tight definition to it. If the committee stage discussion is delegated to a committee, then there may well be a row over membership if the Conservative contingent fails to include a suitable number of eurosceptic luminaries. It will be well worth watching that particular space.

So how does the bill test what is and isn't significant? It would not require a referendum in cases where EU bodies were given the power to impose new requirements, obligations or sanctions on the UK. The argument is that that exemption is required to ensure the government was not constantly holding referendums on relatively minor changes.

On the other hand, big decisions like joining the euro or to signing up to the Schengen agreement on border controls would automatically trigger a referendum. So what about the impending treaty to toughen up the financial framework which underpins the euro? Because - the government says, and the eurosceptics dispute - it only affects other EU member states and not Britain, the bill would not require a UK referendum. There could be some very serious arguments about this, depending on the final wording of the Treaty.

And there will even be a set-piece occasion on which these rows could be had, because the bill would require a minister to explain any decision not to put a treaty change to a referendum in a statement to MPs. Then the lawyers could get involved - the decision would be open to challenge in a judicial review, and any treaty change would still have to be approved by an act of Parliament.

The bill also includes the promised "sovereignty clause", confirming that Parliament has the final say on which laws take effect in the UK, although the Foreign Office acknowledged that this was a "declaratory provision" and would not affect the relationship between EU and UK law. This could be another rich source of euro-discontent - because at some point someone is bound to put the clause to the test.

Which brings us to the latest substantial euro-rebellion, last night, when 25 Conservative backbenchers voted against a motion to approve a fistful of EU documents on European Economic Governance.

In the end neither Bill Cash's amendment (see post below) against any European Treaty changes that could affect UK sovereignty, nor Douglas Carswell's proposal to summon the UK's permanent representative at the EU to explain his negotiating strategy at the bar of the House were accepted for debate. So the issue boiled down to a straight yes-no vote on the documents themselves - with the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Mark Hoban, batting for the government.

He insisted - significance again - that nothing in the documents would impinge on British economic decision-making and the plans for a new policy framework for euro-zone members would help prevent turbulence among some of Britain's most important trading partners.

He concluded:

"Fiscal frameworks should be stronger, but should not be dictated by Europe. It is the history of this House to defend fiercely our fiscal sovereignty. Through the agreement reached, the government have achieved that. No sanctions will be imposed on Britain, and we will be free to set the right fiscal policies for our country's needs."

Mr Cash, who chairs the Commons European Scrutiny Select Committee warned that "...if the proposal is accepted by the government, they will effectively cross the Rubicon and similarly, by acquiescing in ever-greater European governance over our economy, they will significantly undermine our ability to govern ourselves. We need less Europe, not more."

Mr Carswell continued to argue that the proposals did extend increasing EU power over the UK budget. His key quote:

"No-one was more heartened than I to hear the prime minister tell the House back in June that any new deal with the EU 'should not interfere with national competencies'. He also said: 'On budget surveillance, let me be clear: the UK Budget will be shown to this House first and not to the Commission...co-ordination and consultation, yes; clearance, no, never.' Such assurances were welcome, yet within a couple of weeks we heard Olli Rehn, the Economic and Monetary Policy Commissioner, spell out the details. He said: 'All member states would submit their fiscal programmes at the same time in April to allow the Council to issue country specific policy guidelines.' Is it any wonder that when the Chancellor appeared before the Treasury Select Committee he was able to reveal the date of the next Budget? It is now part of a timetable set in Brussels. Ministers have claimed that the level of disclosure is nothing new, and that it is no more than what a think-tank might find out about UK fiscal policy via Google. Indeed, but think-tanks do not have the power to issue guidelines, and they cannot pass legislation on the basis of the analysis that they then make."

All this was very entertaining for the Labour benches, from where Chris Leslie had a bit of fun chiding the government on its reluctance to put the documents to the vote. .

For this level of rebellion to matter, Labour has to line up against the Conservatives, rather than sit on its collective hands. That would require an unlikely, but not impossible, conjunction of issues. So watch the EU Bill, and the vote on the final EU Budget deal, if an increase greater than the current 2.9% is accepted. And of course someone's bound to try to require a referendum on that forthcoming EU Treaty.

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It seems the anger at Mr Speaker Bercow over the failure to call a by-election, following the removal of Phil Woolas as an MP by the election court, is even more misplaced than I thought.

This press statement has just emerged from the Commons authorities:

"After the decision by the election court concerning Phil Woolas, the member for Oldham East and Saddleworth, the Speaker of the House of Commons reported the court's decision to the House in a statement on Monday. A candidate reported by an election court as personally guilty of an illegal practice is required to vacate their seat in the House of Commons as from the date of the court's decision (Friday 5 November).

"As the seat is now vacant, a by-election will be held once the House of Commons has passed a motion for the issue of a writ.

"The Speaker can neither initiate nor block the motion to move a writ for a by-election. He has no say in when a member moves a writ for the by-election. This is usually done by a member of the party which has previously held the seat. Once the House agrees to a motion for the issue of a writ, the Speaker is required to carry out the House's decision and to issue his warrant for the by-election. He has no discretion about this. A by-election must be held within 19 working days of the issue of the writ."

Meanwhile, the angst rumbles on. One Labour MP was withering about Harriet Harman's immediate excommunication of Mr Woolas, and contrasted it to the indulgence shown to Ken Livingstone. Another Labour figure opined that the Parliamentary Labour Party "had been ready to blow" for a while.

The post-election euphoria at surviving an electoral near-death experience had soured, and the impotence of opposition had dawned on Labour MPs used to helping shape events. Still another hoped there was a statute of limitations - or half the by-elections of the last 20 years would end up being refought in the courts. Meanwhile Labour backbenchers are being asked to contribute Β£100 a head to help fund Mr Woolas's attempt to secure a judicial review - and quite a few are said to be coughing up.

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Are we heading for episode two of the Conservatives euro-troubles? Today's agenda in the Commons includes an innocuous-looking item entitled "motion to approve European documents relating to economic policy co-ordination".

It's innocuous no more. Perhaps once, MPs would have simply rubber-stamped the shopping list of documents on reinforcing economic policy co-ordination, on tools for stronger EU economic governance, on speeding up and clarifying the EU's excessive [national] deficits procedure, on the prevention and correction of macro-economic imbalances and all the rest - there are eight policy papers plus the report of the EU task force on economic governance, which MPs are simply asked to "note".

But not any longer. Eurosceptic patriarch and chair of the European Scrutiny Select Committee, Bill Cash, has put down an amendment warning that, taken together, the list of regulations and directives "clearly affect the UK". Mr Cash's amendment also calls on the government to veto any new treaty which affects the UK or its parliamentary sovereignty - or at least hold a referendum on it.

To that is added a further amendment from backbench awkward squaddie Douglas Carswell. This starts with a conciliatory note, congratulating the government for ensuring that the EU does not legislate to take a role in British budgets - but then it adds a requirement for the UK's Permanent Representative in the EU, a civil servant, , to come to the bar of the House to explain how the government's objectives will be achieved in EU negotiations.

That last bit is pretty radical. No-one has been summoned to the Bar of the House in my lifetime - the last was the legendary Sunday Express editor, Sir John Junor, who was called in to be told off about something disrespectful that appeared in his paper. Mr Carswell's thinking is simple. He believes the real power in Euro-talks is actually in the hands of the civil servants rather the ministers. In the past, MPs like him had assumed all would be well if the British figurehead in negotiations scored highly on the sceptic-ometer. Now he wants a strong parliamentary mechanism for holding the real power in the talks (Mr Darroch) directly to account. So this is Mr Carswell wearing both his eurosceptic and his parliamentary reforming hats.

The two amendments are not contradictory - Mr Carswell will vote for Mr Cash's. But the voting patterns may highlight the fault lines between old-guard and new-guard sceptic factions, while some on the Tory backbenches sigh at the inability of the Conservative right to get its act together.

When 37 Conservatives defied the whip over Britain's contribution to the EU budget on 13 October, the whips were rather blindsided by the uprising.

This time they'll be ready. Old hands say that it will be worth watching to see if any potential rebels are bought off by being appointed as Parliamentary Private Secretaries, and thus bound to support government policy. It's rumoured that a further wave of as many as 30 PPSs is due to be announced. Incidentally, we will all be able to enjoy detailed and authoritative analysis of the voting over at the revived and reborn . Rejoice!

* A commentator on my post about the prospects for the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill in the Lords asked if the coalition was legislating against a deadline. Yes. But not an over-tight one.

The normal practice is that bills to authorise referendums need 10 clear weeks between Royal Assent and polling day - so the bill would need to become an Act by late February. The Electoral Commission recommends that the ground rules should be finalised six months before polling day - or by the start of December. But that doesn't have the force of law - it's a recommendation which emerged from the problems during the last Scottish elections. I expect their Lordships will be spending quite a lot of their time on this Bill in the run-up to Christmas, perhaps two days a week of committee stage proceedings for three weeks, and then a three day report and third reading phase - which could all be cleared by early January, allowing plenty of time to get any amendments they make approved by the Commons.

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Westminster is aghast and agog at the unfolding Phil Woolas affair. Aghast at the way a court ruled that an MP could be kicked out of Parliament for unacceptable campaign rhetoric (in this case on leaflets) and agog at the ruthlessness with which he was then cast out by Labour.

And there's much angst about Speaker Bercow's decision not to call an immediate by-election, and to await the outcome of Mr Woolas's application for a judicial review of the decision.

There seems to be a certain amount of cross-party sympathy for Mr Woolas (although I assume that doesn't extend to Lib Dem MPs) and I suspect the thought of the courts passing rulings on the contents of their election literature makes more than a few denizens of the Commons a little queasy - as demonstrated by yesterday's points of order, which followed Mr Bercow's statement announcing that Mr Woolas had been removed. Senior backbenchers like and feared the Woolas ruling had opened the door to any number of post-electoral challenges at which the express will of the electorate might be overturned.

Mr Woolas himself is - as the Speaker confirmed on Monday - no longer an MP. But he was spotted last night drinking with sympathisers in the Strangers' Bar. He was virtually excommunicated by Harriet Harman, following the verdict:

"It is not part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected....Whatever happens in an appeal - what might happen in an appeal, if he does appeal, it could be that they could say on the basis of the facts that the election court found it was not warranted for them to strike down the election result and disqualify him, so he might win on a legal basis....But it won't change the facts that were found by the election court, which was that he said things that were untrue knowing it, and that is what we are taking action on - because it is not part of Labour's politics for somebody to be telling lies to get themselves elected. That's not going to change, and that's what we regard as very serious and that's why we have suspended him."

Now, he looks to have no political future at all. And his friends in the Commons are pretty unhappy about the way he was dispatched. It's another early example of the ruthlessness of their new regime, attracting comparisons to the way Mr Miliband put a stop to incumbent chief whip Nick Brown's hopes of being re-elected to his post, or the way the then-Conservative leader Michael Howard disposed of shadow Treasury Minister Howard Flight when he talked out of school about possible spending cuts, in the run-up to the 2005 election.

As for Mr Speaker, I must admit to being slightly startled at the howls of outrage that have greeted his decision to let the legal process run its course before calling a by-election in Mr Woolas's former seat, Oldham East and Saddleworth. Is it really such an outrage? To be sure the voters of that constituency do not at present have a member of parliament, but were the by-election held, and were Mr Woolas to then win his judicial review, they would have two.

The judicial review process can be expedited, and the first part of the process, where obviously hopeless applications are weeded out, could take place within days. So any pause to allow a hearing to be held should not take long. By convention, by-elections are called within three months of the death or departure of an MP, and in the last Parliament the voters of Glasgow North-East waited 142 days for a chance to replace former Speaker Michael Martin. And after Labour MP David Taylor died on Boxing Day, the voters of North West Leicestershire had to wait until the May General Election - 131 days - to choose his successor.

So on the Richter scale of disenfranchisement, the good folk of Oldham East, who at the time of writing have been without an MP for about four days, have not suffered much, yet. Incidentally, I very much doubt that Mrs Speaker, who said on the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ that she hoped Mr Woolas would have a chance to have his judicial review, had much influence on the decision - although of course media critics seized the chance to employ ungallant adjectives like "popsy" and "doxy".

Apparently Lib Dem leaflets are already going out in the constituency (hat tip: Conservative Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ) but I suspect that is simply because the Lib Dems are usually better at by-election campaigning that the other parties, and know full well that they will have a lot at stake in this by-election, if it is eventually held.

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After enduring much sound and fury in the Commons, but suffering no actual damage, the sails majestically into more dangerous waters, when it reaches the House of Lords on 15 November. While the coalition have defeated plenty of Commons rebellions, they have actually lost votes a couple of times in their Lordships' House... and they could lose again on a couple of vital components of this bill.

The coalition has a theoretical majority in the Lords - where the combined forces of the Conservatives (193 peers) and Liberal Democrats (79 peers) outnumber Labour (234 peers) by 38. But that leaves out the 181 crossbenchers, and takes no account of another crucial factor: the likelihood of peers turning up to vote. On a good day the Conservative whips are pretty chuffed if they can get about 135 of their peers into the right lobby - although most of the Lib Dem peers will normally turn out for their party. So we're looking at a likely coalition vote of 210 or so, if their whips dig deep. But Labour also have difficulties getting their peers to the wicket, so their likely vote is closer to 110.

In other words, a hotly contested vote will be 210 coalition peers against 110 Labour. And, for the government, all is well, so long as the crossbenchers don't tip the balance. Remember, they are not a party, they have no whipping or agreed policies. But there are occasions on which they may break in one particular direction - and the Parliamentary Voting etc Bill may provide a number of them, when the time comes for detailed amendments to be considered. I've noted before that the proposed process for redrawing constituency boundaries, in order to cut the number of MPs and equalise the electorates for most of them, is pretty brutal. It abolishes the normal public inquiries held by the boundary commissioners - and that is precisely the kind of process issue where peers, who see themselves as guardians of the constitution, may decide to weigh in.

Normally, government bills get some protection in the Lords from the so-called Salisbury-Addison Convention, under which measures which were promised in an election-winners' manifesto are not opposed at second or third reading - and, by implication at least, are not wrecked in between. But this bill emerged from the coalition negotiations in May, and can't claim any such protection, so peers who dislike it, or who just want to make trouble for the coalition, can let their remaining hair down. (And that could include a number of Conservative peers - because enthusiasm for the bill in Tory ranks is not exactly overwhelming).

And if they do succeed in reinstating public inquiries, the result might be to delay the constituency boundary exercise to the point where the changes cannot be put in place in time for the next election in 2015. Nick Clegg has warned he won't accept amendments which affect the "fundamental fairness" of the bill - but he could be presented with a very nasty choice, of either accepting the reinstatement of inquiries, or attempting to over-ride the Lords via the Parliament Act, which would itself delay matters for a year. This could be quite a severe test of coalition solidarity.

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Monday will see Defence Secretary Liam Fox on his feet to answer questions about the Strategic Review during Defence questions and the House will be considering the report stage and third reading of the Finance (No 2) Bill - few controversial parts of this otherwise technical exercise.

Meanwhile, their Lordships will be discussing the Budget Responsibility and National Audit Bill at second reading - this is the bill that sets up the new watchdog body, the Office for Budget Responsibility. Earlier (and not for the first time in Westminster) a question will arise about those demonstrating in Parliament Square. A further exercise in navel-gazing occurs on committee corridor, where the Administration Committee will be discussing catering services provided to those who work in the Palace of Westminster.

Tuesday will see an Opposition Day debate in the Commons - and the choice of subject is proposed changes to housing benefit. Over in the Lords, the second reading of the Public Bodies Bill will occupy peers' time - this is the bill which gives ministers "Henry VIII-style powers" to abolish quangos at the stroke of a pen - and it could take quite a lot of time, given the number of peers who're also quangocrats. Some worry that the whole debate could be taken up with declarations of interest.

Plenty going on on committee corridor on Tuesday: former PM Gordon Brown will be helping the with its inquiry into Millennium Development Goals; Lin Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔr, the chief executive of the UK Border Agency will be talking to the and Louise Casey, former "Respect tsar", will be talking about the role of the Probation Service.

The will be talking to the splendidly-named Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, the UK's former special envoy in Afghanistan who left his post in June. Sir Sherard has been critical of Nato and US policy, and has said talks with the Taliban should have greater priority. The committee is looking at UK foreign policy towards Afghanistan and Pakistan.

David Cameron and Ed Miliband will not be facing each other over the despatch box at PMQs on Wednesday. Mr Cameron will be in China - the normal drill is for Nick Clegg to stand in.

Following the weekly knockabout session, MPs will discuss the Equitable Life (Payments) Bill in one huge chunk - committee of the whole house, report stage and third reading. The adjournment debate is one that your correspondent will be watching with some interest: Labour's Ian Murray is introducing a debate on the future funding of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ following the Comprehensive Spending Review.

Their lordships will be debating the effect of an elected House of Lords (see posts passim), in a debate introduced by Lord Grocott, who, as Bruce Grocott was PPS to Tony Blair until 2001 - and was also the government chief whip in the Upper House.

Committees on Wednesday include an appearance before the by Minister Chris Grayling, to discuss youth unemployment and jobs, and Sir Stuart Peach before the on operations in Afghanistan. Sir Stuart is Chief of Joint Operations: therefore he's the man who is responsible for the planning and execution of UK-led joint, potentially joint and multinational operations, and for exercising operational command of UK Forces assigned to multinational operations led by others. Further down committee corridor, scientists from the Royal Astronomical Society, the National Grid and the Department for Transport and Energy, will be talking about space weather - and how the government receives advice and evidence in emergencies.

On Thursday, MPs will have a debate on Policy on Growth. This is the latest subject chosen by the Backbench Business Committee - at the urging of former cabinet minister John Redwood. You can get a taste of his economic thinking, .

The Lords will be talking about the quality of life for people with cancer and how to properly resource diplomacy for Britain. Westminster Hall will be hosting a debate on the UN Climate Change Conference and the will move away from its inquiry into the Spending Review to investigate financial regulation with the help of Lloyds of London.

Friday is private members' bill day in the Commons and Lords when Labour's Robert Flello tops the agenda with his Sustainable Livestock Bill. The last Friday session saw Conservative MPs talking out John McDonnell's bill on strike ballots - I wonder if they plan to target anything this time?

It could be the Lords that generate the Friday headlines, though. They're debating defence - and there's almost a tradition now that the phalanx of top admirals and generals on the red benches, many former chiefs of the Defence Staff, bombard the government of the day. Certainly they foreshadowed the current rows over defence overstretch when they debated the Labour government's policies in the last parliament, and gave ministers a fearsome kicking.

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It's not just MPs facing a parliamentary cull. With the number of peers in the House of Lords pushing 800, especially with the wave of new post-election arrivals, all parties are worried that the Upper House has expanded to embarrassing, even absurd dimensions.

and into retirement. The report, compiled under the chairmanship of the wily Conservative ex-cabinet minister , is essentially a list of possibilities, and doesn't recommend any particular answer.

There will be a debate later in the month to "take voices" and then further work to come up with something more concrete. But the analysis has turned up some interesting factoids....for example, there are 15 Conservative peers, 14 Crossbenchers, four Liberal Democrats and three Labour peers, who have served for between 25 and 30 years. Should length of service be capped? Some of the oldest peers have some of the most interesting things to say, retort senior Lords sources.

Then there's the issue of attendance. In the 2009-10 session of Parliament, 289 peers were there three-quarters of the time, and 135 more than half the time. And 68 attended at least once, but less than 10% of the time. But there was a substantial group who didn't attend at all - 79 peers - a bit more than a tenth of the total membership. Bearing in mind the age profile of the House of Lords, and the fact that membership is for life (I have a vague notion that peers can only be expelled from the Lords in very extreme circumstances, and that the last case involved an Anglo-German aristocrat who chose to fight for the Kaiser in 1914) this shouldn't be taken to mean that all 79 are wilfully ignoring their responsibilities as legislators.

The Lords gripe about pressure on the facilities from their influx of new members - their library is too crowded, it's often hard to book a table for dinner etc - but the real issue is that the expansion of the Upper House seems to be getting a little out of hand. And as the Labour MP Chris Ruane demonstrated at that point is not being lost on the soon to be culled members of the Commons.

The coalition is planning to phase in an elected Lords (or Senate, or whatever...) and was due to announce its proposals about now. I gather that has slipped back a bit, with the all-party talks rather bogged down at the moment, and the plans may now emerge in January. But they will have to include some way of easing out some peers. There's talk of allowing ex-Lords continued access to some Lords facilities and to keep some suitable honorific, but the Treasury is said to be loath to allow anything amounting to a buy-out package...which may mean a lot of peers won't go quietly. That in turn may make life awkward for the coalition, because Lords reform has to be passed by, er, the Lords. And the prospect of getting through one of the Lib Dems' key coalition sweeteners, an elected Upper House, look less rosy if the plan has to be forced through via the Parliament Act, which will keep an apparently abstruse issue in the news for a good two years.

There may be great constitutional issues at stake, but solving the mundane ones, would make them a lot easier to deal with. (Sigh).

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Tune in next Tuesday for the second episode of the return of Gordon Brown.

Fresh from his adjournment debate intervention on Monday, the former PM will give evidence to the International Development Select Committee on a subject he has always championed: progress towards meeting the Millennium Development Goals.

Introduced in 2000, set to be achieved by 2015, are:

1: Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger
2: Achieve universal primary education
3: Promote gender equality and empower women
4: Reduce child mortality
5: Improve maternal health
6: Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
7: Ensure environmental sustainability
8: Develop a Global Partnership for Development

The in 2007 that "the world is not on track to meet that commitment. We have just seven years to go - a few short years to make the difference for millions of people on our planet between grinding poverty and the opportunity to learn, be healthy and make enough to support their families."

The Deputy Prime Minister,: "Twenty two of the 34 countries furthest from reaching the MDGs are in the midst of or emerging from violent conflict."

He added: "If we each step up, we can meet the Millennium Development Goals."

Maybe Mr Brown will have some advice on how that can be done.

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Are we in the build-up to the first by-election of the 2010 Parliament? My spies tell me that the city of Leicester is soon to opt for an elected mayor.

And if they do, a prime candidate for the job - in a usually-Labour city - would be the MP for Leicester South, . He was leader of the Council back in the 1980s and early 1990s for a total of 17 years. He fought and lost a by-election for his current seat in July 2004, and then won it in the 2005 General Election.

Sir Peter's never really given the impression of enjoying life as a backbencher - and I'm betting he won't be able to resist the lure of a mayoral role in his home city - although such are the delights of Leicester's faction-ridden Labour politics, that his selection as a candidate may not be a done deal.

But if he does win his party's candidacy, and ultimately the job, that would mean another Leicester South by-election. Last May, Sir Peter increased Labour's share of the vote - so it may not be a particularly awkward by-election for Ed Miliband and Labour. Indeed it may be seen as an opportunity to install a favoured Ed-ite in the Commons.

Meanwhile, given the precedent in Hartlepool where , the local football club mascot, aka Stuart Drummond is now in his second term as mayor, Sir Peter should beware of any sign of political ambition on the part of Leicester City's Filbert the Fox.

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Welsh MPs have realised they're about to be culled - courtesy of the Parliamentary Voting and Constituencies Bill - and they will gather tomorrow morning to protest their fate.

In its drive to reduce the number of parliamentary seats by 50, and equalise constituency sizes, the bill would cut the number of Welsh MPs by a quarter - bringing a number of careers to an abrupt end.

Last week a report by the warned that the resulting re-jigging of constituency boundaries could lump together disparate communities separated by mountains - or create a vast super-constituency covering sparsely-populated central Wales - where, they quip, MP would probably need a personal helicopter to get around.

But one of the report's major gripes is that the government did not convene the Welsh Grand Committee, the convocation of all Welsh MPs, to discuss the effects of the bill. Lack of consultation in Wales, and indeed in Scotland has been a major issue throughout the consideration of the bill, and the defeat of assorted amendments to remedy the complaints has rubbed salt into the wounds.

And so annoyed is , that she has discovered a suitable substitute - if the Grand Committee cannot be convened, and that is in the gift of the Secretary of State, Cheryl Gillan, she will summon the Welsh Parliamentary Party. This is a gathering of, er, all the Welsh MPs. The distinction is that the meeting is not a parliamentary proceeding. But they will be able to give their views - and Ann Clwyd hopes they will be able to agree a resolution to put to the government as well.

The Welsh Parliamentary Party is a seldom-seen denizen of Westminster - it was last convened in 1996 to harry the then Welsh Secretary, William Hague, and seems to have its origins in an attempt to deal with the economic crisis of the 1930s. It will break cover again tomorrow (Wednesday) morning - and it may yet sink its teeth into the secretary of state.

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As predicted, David Cameron was not torn limb from limb by a pack of baying backbenchers. He may not have been greeted by cheers and the waving of order papers, but when his Eurosceptics rose, they mostly directed their fire at Labour.

Bill Cash, the veteran of the Maastricht Treaty rebellions, who now chairs the , raised the point I quoted in my earlier post, about Paragraph 34 of the Task Force report, and a well-prepared prime minister cited several other paragraphs, and quoted from the summit conclusions, to bolster his view that there is nothing for Britain to fear, and much to welcome in the eurozone putting its house in order.

Behind him, several of his backbenchers, notably Douglas Carswell, were scribbling industriously.

The PM made several significant points. He didn't see European treaty changes, that simply put the emergency measures created to bail out Greece and other troubled eurozone member states onto a permanent footing, as a matter for a UK referendum. He repeated several times that he would hold a referendum for treaty changes that took power from Westminster - and insisted this did not fall into that category.

Second, he said that a treaty change of that kind was too minor to be used to leverage other changes desired by his backbenchers. That will disappoint those who hoped to see him take the opportunity to extract concessions from the EU and maybe repatriate powers from it. I'm not clear from the exchanges - maybe a reading of Hansard tomorrow will help - whether that applies to the Franco-German proposal for a new framework for the eurozone.

Ed Miliband, meanwhile, didn't deliver any real surprises - helpfully promising Mr Cameron support against his backbenchers. No damascene conversion to euroscepticism was detectable today.

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Should David Cameron brace himself for a rough ride from his eurosceptic backbenchers this afternoon?

Or could he face an unnerving silence? The prime minister's due to deliver a Commons Statement at about 3.30pm, on the outcome of his first Euro-summit, having signed up to a budget deal that allows EU spending to rise by 2.9%.

Last week, he argued that this was the first step to pegging back EU spending and was a considerable improvement on the 5.8% increase demanded by the European Parliament.

But over at Conservative Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ, - with only 30% of those who took part in a survey regarding the outcome as "a big victory for Cameron".

So it is quite possible that such sentiments may be voiced by some Conservative backbenchers. But I'm hearing that some of those who are most worried by the expansion of the EU budget may decide to keep their powder dry. Instead, the new generation of eurosceptics will listen carefully, note down forms of words and analyse them closely, and study the small print and the footnotes, before deciding what to do next.

One "usual suspect" was less exercised by the 2.9% (although he was far from delighted about it) than by the previous government's agreement to reduce the UK's budget rebate - famously extracted by Margaret Thatcher.

Another was more worried about creeping EU competence extending more and more into the budgetary affairs of member states. Britain's economic management and government spending will be "surveyed" by the EU, but, because we are not members of the euro, and still have sterling, this country can't be punished for breaking euro-rules on government borrowing and so forth.

But there is considerable worry that, in the medium term, the EU will assert more control - and sceptics point to the . The report of a European Council (of ministers) Task Force on Strengthening Economic Governance in the EU. The fear that, through paragraph 34, the UK has already signed up to the idea of an EU wide legal mechanism to harmonise the economic policies of all member states.

"34. The Task Force recommends deeper macro-economic surveillance with the introduction of a new mechanism underpinned by a new legal framework based on Article 121 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) alongside the SGP (Stability and Growth Pact) applying to all EU Member States, taking into account the specificity of the euro area. The implementation of this mechanism would be done in a way to ensure consistency with the surveillance of fiscal policies, growth-enhancing structural reforms and macro-financial stability, and to avoid duplication and overlap."

The task force was a pretty high powered body - headed by the EU President Herman Van Rompuy, and including the President of the European Central Bank, Jean Claude Trichet. Britain's representative was the Chancellor, George Osborne...

If this paragraph means what they think it means, I wonder if Gordon Brown - famously unwilling to cede Treasury power to anyone - would have permitted his Chancellor to sign up to it, had he still been in power?

In any event Conservative sceptics think there will be plenty of opportunities to influence events. Next Wednesday, the EU Council of Ministers and the European Parliament will negotiate on the budget - and it is at least possible that there will be further compromise, resulting in a budget increase of more than the 2.9%.

Further in the future, Parliament will have to approve the actual budget contribution, and later still there may be a new European Treaty incorporating the Franco-German proposals for stronger economic government in the eurozone - at which point Mr Cameron may find his troops quoting his manifesto promise: "We will ensure that there is no further transfer of sovereignty or powers over the course of the next Parliament" and demanding a referendum.

A couple of weeks ago, 37 Conservative MPs voted against the whip to demand EU budget cuts. Several traditionally sceptical MPs did not join in then, but might do in the future. On the other hand, the whips are said to have been working very hard on the dissidents. But the government majority could be vulnerable, if Ed Miliband decides to back protests against the budget. Which is why a close study of the Labour leader's words in response to the statement could be pretty rewarding as well.

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