MPs and peers were last night still locked in a Parliamentary battle over the introduction of identity cards, with neither side willing to give way.

The Government was defeated by the Lords for the fourth time on Monday night over the issue of compulsion.

Ministers want those getting a passport from 2008 to also go on the National Identity Register and have an ID card.

But peers - rejecting the idea of "compulsion by stealth" - voted by a majority of 36 to keep the link voluntary until 2011, after the next General Election.

Last night, the Commons overturned this latest defeat by 284 votes to 241, majority 43, after Home Secretary Charles Clarke condemned the move as an attempt to wreck the legislation.

"That's unacceptable," he said. "It would not be right to allow the Lords to delay the implementation of legislation that they disliked until five years have passed.

"It is a deliberate plan for delay and destruction of the process of the ID Cards Bill.

"This is the fourth time this issue has come back to us from the Lords and it really should be the last."

Mr Clarke denied the Lords' move amounted to a compromise and warned it would create uncertainty and additional costs.

"The real intention is to make the scheme unworkable by fuelling uncertainty about its implementation," he said.